Former IDF Chief of Staff and chairman of the “Yashar!” party Gadi Eisenkot delivered a policy address on Thursday along the Gaza Strip border, sharply criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wartime conduct while unveiling his diplomatic and security platform. Eisenkot opened with an explicit campaign pledge: “I commit: within 18 months of entering the Prime Minister’s Office, Hamas will no longer govern the Gaza Strip. We will bring about the destruction of Hamas’s military wing. This will be achieved either through action based on President Trump’s framework, which was accepted by the Netanyahu government, or through the employment of decisive military and operational capabilities.”
Eisenkot took direct aim at the current government’s record, claiming that the prime minister’s public slogans mask continuous surrender. “As long as Benjamin Netanyahu remains in power, Hamas will remain in power,” Eisenkot asserted. “The man who hangs banners declaring ‘No Surrender’ is the first to surrender: to draft evaders, to his coalition partners, and to Hamas.” He continued: “Never in Israel’s history has a government received so much maneuvering room and international and public legitimacy, only to suffer such a resounding strategic failure. Three years after the October 7 massacre, Hamas remains sovereign in the Gaza Strip—armed, rearming, and rehabilitating its military capabilities.”
Eisenkot emphasized what he termed an unbridgeable divide between battlefield troops and political decision-makers: “In Iran, in Lebanon, and in Gaza, a deep chasm exists between the achievements of our fighters on the ground and Netanyahu’s failure to meet the very war objectives he defined.” Insisting that structural failures must not be treated as inevitable fate, Eisenkot reiterated the demand for accountability: “We will make bold decisions, formulate a national strategy, investigate October 7 through a State Commission of Inquiry, and implement the operational lessons. This is not a luxury; it is an urgent security imperative. I have the knowledge and experience to professionally lead the IDF, the Mossad, and the Shin Bet.”
The Likud party issued a terse, pointed response aimed at confronting Eisenkot with his prospective coalition math, asking derisively: “How will you topple Hamas without receiving permission from your partners Mansour [Abbas] and [Ahmad] Tibi?” Through the jab, Likud signaled that Eisenkot’s security pledges lack practical political backing, arguing that the dictates of Arab party partners would paralyze any future government he attempts to form. In response to Likud’s barb, the “Yashar!” party stated: “For 17 years, Netanyahu and the Likud have misled Israeli citizens and strengthened Hamas. If you had focused a little more on your mission and a little less on drafting talking points, perhaps you could have prevented October 7. In 12 days, you are going home.”
Simultaneously, the “Amcha Yisrael” party, led by Brig. Gen. (res.) Ofer Winter, issued a scathing rebuke of Eisenkot, attacking his military record and General Staff appointments: “Gadi Eisenkot was the Chief of Staff of the ‘Conceptsia’ [flawed security paradigm] who pushed for containment and arrangements, and called to halt the war before we entered Rafah. The General Staff appointed by Eisenkot was composed of Yair Golan, Aharon Haliva, and Herzi Halevi, promoting disastrous doctrines that marched Israel directly into October 7. There will not and cannot be decisive victory under a government run by Gadi Eisenkot and Yair Golan.”
Winter’s party framed the central question of the upcoming election: “The question in this election is who will lead Israel’s defense policy in the coming years: Eisenkot-Golan-Abbas, or Ofer Winter as Defense Minister alongside Yoseph Haddad as Public Diplomacy Minister, working together to achieve the voluntary migration of Gazans instead of importing them into Israel for ‘work.'”