Shin Bet to allow armed guards for Eisenkot, but won’t provide them itself -- report

Apparent compromise will also grant Eisenkot’s team direct line to agency and relevant intel, after PM told Zini to ensure his main opponent has ‘adequate’ security

The Shin Bet will allow Yashar party chair Gadi Eisenkot’s private guards to carry weapons, Channel 12 reported Monday, in an apparent compromise after the security agency turned down a request to provide an official security detail for the election frontrunner.

The decision by David Zini, chief of the domestic security agency, came as concern has risen across the ideological spectrum about political violence ahead of the October 27 election.

Zini initially denied Yashar’s request to provide Eisenkot with an armed security detail, reportedly telling the former military chief to instead call an “emergency hotline” if faced with a security threat.

Eisenkot’s party had asked for guards to be provided due to what it said were increased threats against him since he became the leading candidate to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

His team has hired private bodyguards, but said these were insufficient while unarmed, and warned that Eisenkot would become increasingly exposed as the election approached, with the former IDF chief regularly attending conferences, touring the country and appearing at events whose locations and schedules were publicized in advance.

The apparent compromise to allow Eisenkot’s private guards to carry weapons followed various Hebrew media outlets reporting on Sunday that Netanyahu had intervened and told Zini to ensure Eisenkot receives “adequate” security “as needed.”

According to Channel 12, the Shin Bet will also grant Eisenkot’s campaign team access to relevant intelligence and a direct line of communication to the security agency’s headquarters.

Gadi Eisenkot (C), head of the Yashar political party, holds a meet-and-greet with people at a coffee shop as part of his campaign ahead of Israel’s general elections in Jerusalem on August 12, 2026. (ilia YEFIMOVICH/AFP)

The Shin Bet director said on Saturday that he was “solely responsible” for the choice to withhold a security detail from Eisenkot, and that he had consulted with professionals.

The chairman of the Central Elections Committee, Justice Noam Sohlberg, later said the Shin Bet head had informed him that there was no intelligence suggesting any plot to harm the Yashar party leader.

According to the Ynet news site, however, Eisenkot’s campaign warned Zini that tensions and incitement were rising — both on the street and online — ahead of the election, and that the physical threat to the candidate “is increasing every day.”

The Yashar leader’s son, Master Sgt. (res.) Gal Eisenkot, was killed in Gaza in December 2023. Earlier this month, the family visited his grave and discovered that someone had graffitied on the headstone: “Gal the fighter, it’s a shame your father doesn’t protect the soldiers.”

The dispute over Eisenkot’s protection comes as he has emerged as Netanyahu’s strongest electoral challenger. A Zman Yisrael poll projected Yashar winning 25 Knesset seats, compared with 21 for Likud. Yashar has led most polls in recent weeks, though Likud frequently trails by only a small margin.

Eisenkot, who served as IDF chief of staff from 2015 to 2019, entered politics in 2022, joining Benny Gantz’s National Unity party. After the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack, he joined Netanyahu’s war cabinet, but then quit in 2024. He formally launched Yashar’s election campaign on June 30 and declared that he was running for prime minister, pledging to be a “prime minister for all Israeli citizens.”