Who is Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu’s opponent?

Opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot is looking to be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s primary opponent in an election cycle where Israelis are growing displeased with current leadership.

Eisenkot worked in the Israeli military for 41 years before eventually serving as the country’s military chief. He has hammered Netanyahu for security failures, calling him an “anti-leader,” according to The Times of Israel .

“If, God forbid, the current right-wing coalition wins again, it will lead Israel in dark directions that we can already see unfolding,” he told The Times of Israel.

The former Israeli military chief pointed to the attempted hijacking of a Flydubai flight as a “massive security failure,” stating Netanyahu “shamelessly leverages it for a photo op.”

“This election,” Eisenkot expressed, “is a choice between responsibility and running away from responsibility.”

This race marks the first election since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks which killed around 1,200 people. Its aftermath has become a major issue that Netanyahu has been criticized for, along with his leadership during the Iran war.

Eisenkot has campaigned on forming a “formal state commission of inquiry” about the attack. Netanyahu has reportedly blocked inquiry attempts, according to Anadolu , which cited former Israeli intelligence officer Barak Seri.

Seri accused Netanyahu of being warned about the Hamas attack before it happened but “ignored it all.”

After the Oct. 7 attack, Eisenkot joined Netanyahu’s emergency war cabinet but left in 2024 , writing, “Outside considerations and politics infiltrated into the discussions.”

Eisenkot’s campaign has also been defined by his son who died fighting in Gaza. His two nephews who were deployed to combat were also killed fighting in Gaza.

It gave him credibility, The Associated Press reported, as voters saw his personal ties to the conflict as a defining part of his potential military strategy.

Both candidates do not support the creation of a Palestinian state, though Eisenkot has expressed he would halt Israeli annexation efforts of the West Bank.

“Anyone who wants to impose full sovereignty over all of Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] and bring another 2.8 million Palestinians into Israel is endangering the Zionist enterprise and the Jewish demographic majority,” he said, per The Times of Israel.

Eisenkot would make history in Israel as the country’s first Mizrahi Jew to become prime minister. Mizrahi — Jewish people descended from the Middle East or North Africa — is estimated to be the largest Jewish ethnic group in Israel, according to researchers from Tel Aviv University and Columbia University.

To win, Eisenkot still needs to assemble a coalition of at least 61 members of the Knesset, Israel’s 120-member legislature. If he and other candidates fail, as is currently predicted by polling, Israeli President Isaac Herzog can pass the mandate to another lawmaker to try to fulfill within 28 days. If this is also not successful, the country will hold another election.