• Voting is underway in an election seen as one of the most important in Israel’s history and a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership since the October 7, 2023 attacks.
• Opinion polls suggest the race will be too close to call, likely failing to produce a clear winner. The latest polling shows Netanyahu in a tight race against Gadi Eisenkot , a former military chief.
• No single party has ever won a 61-seat majority in Israel’s 120-member parliament, or Knesset. Instead, governments are formed through alliances, which can take weeks or even months to form.
Family members of those killed and taken hostage on October 7 in 2023 gathered at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv for a minute of silence at 6.29 a.m, marking the moment when Hamas-led gunmen began the attack.
The families, in a statement, reiterated their demand for a state commission of inquiry on the attack and also called on Israelis to “remember the loved ones they lost and to carry their memory” when casting their ballots.
Her daughter Mappel Adam was killed at the Nova music festival, she said.
“Vote responsibility. Vote state commission of inquiry. Vote change. Vote hope.”
In Israel, security and accountability are powerful electoral forces after years of war. But opinion polls suggest the cost of living is also a leading concern for many voters — particularly for younger ones.
According to the latest Channel 12 poll, 21% of Israelis rank the economy and the cost of living as their top priority in the election — ahead of ultra-Orthodox conscription with 17%, the October 7, 2023, security failure at 14% and the war with Iran at 10%.
Despite these figures, the economy has not been a central theme in the campaign — until this weekend, when Netanyahu moved it to the top of the agenda. In an interview with Channel 10 focused on the economy, Netanyahu said Israel should prepare for possible international banking sanctions over Israeli settlements in the West Bank by developing “an economy that can circumvent them.” He said cryptocurrency and blockchain are being considered and that he has requested a plan to deal with it.
The Bank of Israel publicly rejected the idea, saying that “cryptocurrencies cannot serve as a means of circumventing sanctions.”
Netanyahu’s main rivals portrayed his proposal as evidence he expects Israel to become more isolated. Opposition candidate Gadi Eisenkot, who mocked the idea as “BibiCoin,” called it a “threat to national security,” accusing Netanyahu of planning to “dismantle the Israeli economy for generations ahead.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s principal opponent in Tuesday’s elections is a relative newcomer to politics. Instead, one of his key electoral advantages boils down to a simple truth: He is not Netanyahu.
Gadi Eisenkot, 66, has spent most of his life in the Israeli military, enlisting in the Golani Brigade in 1978 and rising over a 40-year career to become chief of staff from 2015 to 2019, serving under Netanyahu.
He entered politics in 2022 alongside another former chief of staff, Benny Gantz. After the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel, the two joined Netanyahu’s emergency war cabinet. But they left in June 2024, pointing to the absence of a clear post-war strategy.
Eisenkot is the second of nine children and a father of five. His youngest son, Gal, 25, was killed fighting in Gaza two months into the war.
He has placed that singular promise at the heart of his political mission.
You can read more about the opposition’s strongest candidate here .
Voting has begun in one of Israel’s most significant elections in its history.
Voters are facing a familiar question: Should Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, stay in power?
Nearly every recent election has been a referendum on Netanyahu. This time, many Israelis say the choice is more consequential than ever: not only about who will lead the country, but about where it is heading.
It is the first national vote since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, the deadliest security failure in Israel’s history, and the wars that followed in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran — conflicts that have mobilized much of the country and subsequently deepened Israel’s international isolation.
For many voters, this is the first chance to pass judgment on the leadership that presided over October 7 failures, and decide who should lead the country in conflict and carry the burden of increased military service.
Netanyahu’s outgoing government — the first in decades to conclude a full four-year term — relied on far-right and ultra-Orthodox partners, who pushed Israel in a more nationalist and religious direction than ever before. He became the first sitting Israeli prime minister to stand trial on corruption charges as his government pursued a judicial overhaul aimed at weakening the Supreme Court and other checks on power. The overhaul effort sparked massive protests in 2023.
At stake in Tuesday’s election is whether Israel keeps moving in the nationalistic, conservative and religious direction — or changes course.
The answer might not be clear for weeks, because of the way Israeli coalitions are built. Polls suggest neither Netanyahu’s bloc nor the opposition is likely to win a majority alone, meaning the vote may launch Israel’s next political crisis rather than settle it.
