A woman walks past a Likud Party campaign billboard featuring U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with a Hebrew message reading, "We have one opportunity to win," in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. (AP Photo)
Israelis will vote on Oct. 27 in the first national elections since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack in what is widely seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership.
The deadliest day in Israel’s history features prominently in the campaign, but not in the way many outsiders might expect.
There’s been almost no debate over Israel’s wartime conduct in Gaza, which led to an international arrest warrant against Netanyahu, its occupation of much of southern Lebanon and parts of Syria, or its two wars launched against Iran, all of which have broad support.
Instead, candidates have focused on Netanyahu’s leadership and moral character; his role in the security breakdown on Oct. 7, 2023,; his efforts to exempt ultra-Orthodox Jews from military service and a 2023 judicial overhaul seen by critics as an assault on Israel’s democratic institutions.
Both of the main electoral blocs are dominated by parties that support Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank and oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state, and no major candidate is advocating a return to the long-moribund peace process.
A poll published by public broadcaster KAN found that out of 120 seats in the Israeli parliament, 52 would go to Gadi Eisenkot, the former military chief of staff who is neck and neck with
Netanyahu and 50 to the Israeli premier, with the rest going to non-aligned parties, including Arab ones.
People heading to the polls will pass the faces of fallen soldiers peering from stickers on train station walls and faded yellow ribbons honoring the hostages, the last of whom were returned in a ceasefire deal last year.
Around 68 percent of Jewish Israelis say their attitudes toward the 2023 attack are a central factor in deciding which party to support, according to the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank.
Among the Arab minority, just 32 percent said it factored prominently, with most citing crime as the main issue.
Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, has sought to shift blame for the failures surrounding the attack to security officials while touting Israel’s military achievements against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and their patron, Iran.
Critics accuse him of evading responsibility by blocking an official inquiry into the attack, of not reaching a deal to bring back the hostages sooner, and of failing to win a decisive victory against any of Israel’s foes.
Netanyahu’s governing coalitions have long relied on ultra-Orthodox parties that demand exemptions from military conscription for young men engaged in religious studies. That policy has infuriated
Israel’s secular majority as reservists have been repeatedly called up in the various wars.
Israelis vote for parties, not specific candidates, and no single party is expected to win anywhere close to a 61-seat majority in parliament, known as the Knesset. Whoever can cobble together a majority coalition will become the next prime minister.
If no one is able to, Netanyahu’s government will continue to serve as caretaker until another round of elections in the coming months.
