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By Ellie Cook
Senior Defense Reporter
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As Israelis flock to the polls on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in an uphill battle against opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot, despite a "complete and total endorsement" from President Donald Trump.
Eisenkot's centrist Yashar party inched ahead of Netanyahu's right-wing Likud in polling published Friday in Israeli media, but the polls indicated neither are expected to secure enough votes to win the election outright.
Founded little over a year ago, Eisenkot's Yashar is contesting the first nationwide election since the start of the Israeli war in Gaza in October 2023 and the U.S.-led war with Iran which began February this year.
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With the highest morning voter turnout in decades, those submitting their votes have often described the election as the most important in Israeli history as the country's divisive but longest-serving prime minister vies for another term in power.
Netanyahu has painted himself a stalwart, ruthless protector of Israel—an image jeopardized by the societal wounds of the October 7 attacks in 2023 and deepening Israeli isolation from the rest of the world.
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Who Is Gadi Eisenkot?
Eisenkot is a former chief of staff for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), a retired lieutenant general who spent more than four decades in the military.
He was elected to Israel's parliament, the Knesset, in 2022, and was one of just a handful of Israeli officials steering plans in the Gaza Strip after Israel launched its war on the territory following the October 7 attacks.
In the attacks, militants led by Palestinian organization Hamas surged over from Gaza into southern Israel more than three years ago, killing roughly 1,200 people in Israel and taking another 251 hostage.
Israel's ensuing, highly destructive war in Gaza has killed more than 74,000 people in the strip, according to Hamas-run health authorities. This includes 1,559 people local officials said had been killed since a ceasefire came into force in October 2025.
While serving in the small Israeli war cabinet in December 2023, Eisenkot's son, Gal—a 25 year old soldier in an elite Israeli commando unit—was killed while fighting in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza. Two of his nephews were also killed in the strip.
Eisenkot resigned from the Knesset and from the National Unity Party in mid-2025, and founded his Yashar party roughly two months later.
Eisenkot is a "very steady person," said Yossi Mekelberg, a senior consulting fellow with the Chatham House think tank in London, U.K.
If he ended up in power, he would likely try not to rock the boat in U.S.-Israeli relations, which have already started to change from previous years, Mekelberg told Newsweek.
But Trump has endorsed "warrior" Netanyahu, claiming any other candidate would be the "wrong" leader for Israel. It's not clear how the U.S. president, notorious for his unpredictability, would interact with an Israeli leader who isn't Netanyahu.
What Has Gadi Eisenkot Said About Trump?
Eisenkot has at once praised Trump, while pushing for Israel to be less dependent on the whims of the White House.
The former military chief has described the U.S.-led war with Iran as "courageous" and said Trump's role in securing the release of remaining hostages in Gaza was an "enormous contribution."
All deceased and living hostages had returned to Israel by late January this year after a series of deals to pause the fighting and prisoner swaps.
"Without Trump’s involvement, that agreement would never have materialized," Eisenkot told the New York Post in an interview published Saturday.
"President Trump made enormous positive contributions to the Middle East, and the alliance between the U.S. and Israel is very important," Eisenkot said.
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But Eisenkot has also criticized Netanyahu for placing Israel in "a position where the person deciding everything is the president of the United States."
While Israel should not ignore Trump, the country should be "explaining our interests better and standing firm on them," he told Israel's Ynet in June.
Under Netanyahu, Israel has already pledged to reduce its dependence on American military aid to zero within the next 10 years. This declaration came as Netanyahu's government contended with growing discomfort in the U.S., including in some Republican circles, about the toll of the war in Gaza.
On the eve of the Israeli vote, Trump called on Israelis to re-elect Netanyahu, so the two leaders could "finish the job"—an apparent reference to the war against Iran. The White House has said there are no plans to restart attacks on Iran before the U.S. midterm elections on November 3.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, said his relationship with Trump was a "friendship that has never existed before between an Israeli prime minister and an American president."
"He has another two years, and he says he is calling on you to vote for me," Netanyahu added.
Contact Newsweek editors for this story: Robert Greenall and Tobias Meyjes
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