OMM Newsroom
Israel’s Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot said late Wednesday that voters had rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, and pledged to form a new administration committed to military conscription. Anadolu Agency reported his remarks.
In a post on “X”, Eisenkot said he was wrapping up a long day of meetings and discussions aimed at carrying out voters’ wishes.
“Long working days still lie ahead, but we are focused on the weighty task entrusted to us: bringing change to Israel and forming a Zionist government committed to conscription,” he wrote.
Eisenkot said voters had expressed no confidence in “the government of Oct. 7 and draft evasion” and in the broader “draft-dodgers’ bloc”, referring to Netanyahu’s governing alliance. He said the bloc was at its lowest point in two decades.
“I feel the weight of the responsibility and the trust placed in me by hundreds of thousands of citizens who believe in the State of Israel and in Zionism,” he wrote. He thanked supporters, saying the party had made history by emerging within a year as a new political force representing Israelis across society and offering a credible, responsible alternative government.
Eisenkot pledged to carry out the task ahead, adding: “We will act and succeed.”
With 89.8% of votes counted, Netanyahu’s bloc was projected to win 53 seats in the 120-member Knesset, compared with 48 for the bloc led by Eisenkot. The two predominantly Arab parties were projected to secure a combined 19 seats.
Neither bloc had reached the 61 seats needed for a parliamentary majority. The figures remained provisional, with hundreds of thousands of “double-envelope” ballots, including votes cast by soldiers and diplomats, still awaiting counting.
