Netanyahu Heads to Polls in Tight Re-election Race — SkimNews
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- Netanyahu heads into Tuesday’s vote in a tight race with Eisenkot’s bloc; with no party ever winning a 61-seat majority alone, polls indicate a strong possibility that neither main Jewish bloc will govern outright.
- Eisenkot says voters choosing Netanyahu are choosing a leader who “will not deliver victories,” arguing that his rival should answer for Oct. 7 and for failing to turn battlefield wins into diplomatic gains.
- Netanyahu has refused an inquiry into how the Oct. 7 attack was allowed to happen, calls his ongoing military campaigns a “war of redemption,” and has threatened to resume the war with Iran.
- The Oct. 7 Hamas attack killed 1,200 people and left 251 hostages, with the final hostages returned under last year’s ceasefire deal; nearly every poster, stump speech and televised debate invokes the attack.
- Gaza is largely missing from Israeli public debate: the post-Oct. 7 offensive killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, and left the territory in ruins, while Palestinians have little hope conditions improve under either winner.
- Olmert said the two-state solution is absent from debate because it is unpopular with voters, yet warned that a new government cannot ignore Gaza and settler attacks for long amid international outrage.
- Netanyahu has resisted ending military-service exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men, and his allies want to revive a pre-Oct. 7 court overhaul; mass demonstrations accused him of weakening checks and balances while he is on trial for corruption charges.
Why it matters: Palestinians in Gaza have little hope that their lives will improve under either winner after an offensive that killed more than 74,000 people, according to local health authorities. With Gaza and open-ended military rule largely absent from debate, the contest centers on who leads Israel, not the territory’s immediate conditions.
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