Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar (“Right”) party, waves an Israeli flag on stage last month
in Tel Aviv after the publication of the first results of the general elections in Israel.
Ariel Schalit/AP
hide caption
Ariel Schalit/AP
The Israeli president has tapped Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s main political rival, Gadi Eisenkot, to try to form the next government. It’s a setback for Netanyahu, whose party won the most seats but failed to secure a parliamentary majority.
Netanyahu’s Likud party won 27 seats in last month’s elections, six more than Eisenkot’s Yashar party. But neither gained enough support to secure a majority in Israel’s 120-seat parliament.
President Isaac Herzog will officially give the mandate to Eisenkot on Sunday at 5 p.m. local time.
Eisenkot is a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, who served as the country’s top military commander from 2015 to 2019. A veteran of several military campaigns, he later joined Netanyahu’s emergency war cabinet after the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, but left the following year, accusing Netanyahu of failing to make progress toward ending the Gaza war and securing the release of hostages. Eisenkot lost his son Gal, a reservist killed in Gaza, as well as two nephews during the war.
Eisenkot leads the centrist Yashar party, which he founded on an agenda of fighting corruption and government reform. He will now have 28 days to form a coalition government, with a possible extension of 14 days.
That gives it up to six weeks to negotiate with rival parties and secure the 61 seats needed for a parliamentary majority.
If Eisenkot fails, Herzog can give another MP a chance to form a government. If these efforts also fail, Israel could face new elections. In the meantime, Netanyahu would remain interim prime minister.
Gn headline
