From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, June 30, 2026
New TV poll shows Eisenkot gaining strength
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Former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot’s centrist Yashar party would pull ahead of Naftali Bennett’s center-right Together alliance with Yesh Atid if elections were held today, a Channel 12 News poll finds.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party remains the largest faction with 24 seats in the poll, while Eisenkot trails behind the premier with 22.
Bennett, allied with his former partner in government Yair Lapid, is polling at 17 seats.
Overall, the survey aired tonight puts the Zionist anti-Netanyahu bloc at 58 seats total, beating out the current coalition’s projected 52 seats.
Both Arab parties are projected to make it into the Knesset, Hadash-Ta’al and Ra’am, coming to 10 seats in total.
Neither the Zionist opposition or coalition are projected to win the 61 seats needed to form a government.
The next-largest party in tonight’s Channel 12 poll is The Democrats, led by Yair Golan, which would rake in 10 seats.
Yisrael Beytenu, the secularist opposition party run by former defense minister Avigdor Liberman, and the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox Shas party are projected to win nine seats each.
Itamar Ben Gvir’s ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party is projected to win eight seats, while the Haredi United Torah Judaism would win seven.
Both Ra’am, a moderate Islamist party, and the predominantly Arab Hadash-Ta’al alliance receive five seats apiece. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party barely passes the threshold with four seats.
The Arab nationalist Balad party, Benny Gantz’s Blue and White, and The Reservists all fail to cross the threshold needed to make it into the Knesset.
When polled about who they would prefer as prime minister, the most popular contender against Netanyahu is Eisenkot, as opposed to Bennett or Liberman.
When up against Eisenkot, Netanyahu polls at 37% support against Eisenkot’s 36%. Netanyahu is preferred by 40% of those surveyed when placed against either Bennett or Liberman, who poll at 32% and 23%, respectively.
The Times of Israel Community.