Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is facing a tight challenge from former general Gadi Eisenkot in the Netanyahu Israel election scheduled for Tuesday, October 27. According to the Straits Times, Netanyahu, 77, is seeking up to another four years in office. Polls show his bloc neck and neck with the bloc of his main centre-right rival, according to the South China Morning Post.
Netanyahu first served as prime minister three decades ago and has held the post, on and off, for 19 of the past 30 years, according to the Guardian. Eisenkot is the lead opposition challenger to him, the Guardian reports.
The campaign has grown bitter. According to the Guardian, Channel 14 commentator Yinon Magal reportedly described Eisenkot as a Moroccan "monkey", a racial slur, in the week before the vote. The Guardian’s report does not include a response to the remark from Netanyahu’s office, Eisenkot’s party or Channel 14.
The Post reports that candidates and activists are using AI-generated images that are flooding social media. The images portray opponents as weak, untrustworthy or damaging for the country. The Post also reports that some candidates who lost loved ones in wars following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack have had their bereavement dragged into the campaign. The sources do not name those candidates.
The main divide in the race is between Netanyahu’s bloc and the anti-Netanyahu bloc. The Guardian describes it as Bibi versus anti-Bibi rather than left versus right.
The Guardian also reports that Israel says more than 70,000 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, and that one-third of them were Hamas combatants. The Guardian attributes this figure to Israel. No independent confirmation of the death toll or of the combatant claim is provided in the reporting.
The result will show whether Netanyahu returns to office or whether the anti-Netanyahu bloc can secure a majority.
The reporting available for this story relies on excerpts and headlines from the Guardian and the Post, so the full polling picture remains unconfirmed. No poll figures or seat projections have been published in these sources.
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This article was written with AI assistance from the published reporting listed above. It is part of the World Brief daily news podcast.