Deeply divided Israel braces for pivotal election

After three years of regional war, this is a battle Israel always knew was coming.

The general election on Tuesday hangs over a country that's deeply divided and ready for a fight.

Polls published on Friday put the governing coalition and the main opposition bloc almost neck-and-neck, with half a million first-time voters due to cast their ballot and some 70,000 Israelis reportedly flying in from abroad specifically to vote.

On Saturday night, vast crowds of opposition voters gathered in central Tel Aviv to demand a change of government.

"We're optimistic," 21-year-old Omri told me. "I want peace, I want security, and I want to end corruption and get the religious fanatics out."

This campaign has been energized by new tactics - including AI videos designed to grab the headlines - and also by a new face.

Gadi Eisenkot is, perhaps, not the man you might expect to take on the flashy, aggressive, media-savvy brand of Israel's longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Relatively new to politics, with a working-class Moroccan background, Eisenkot is a former military chief of staff who is renowned for his calm manner and low-drama approach. He's been dubbed by some as a "non-politician".

But he and his centrist Yashar party have regularly pipped Netanyahu and his Likud party to the top spot in recent polls, the last of which was published on Friday, in line with Israeli election law.

Israeli politics is the art of coalition-building, rather than the task of any one party winning power, but with the predicted result too close to call, Eisenkot's rising profile has sharpened a race many Israelis already see as existential for the future of their country.

I watched him slip past the cameras at a community centre for Ethiopian Jews in the city of Ramle last week, through a gaggle of security personnel and advisors.

One of those who had come to hear him speak was David, a smartly dressed man in a freshly-pressed shirt and navy jacket, who said he had met Eisenkot before.

"He looks you in the eye, not like a leader looking down at someone," David told me. "And he listens. He's very sympathetic."

Eisenkot's appeal is often put down to his personal manner and profile. A softly-spoken military man whose son was killed during the Gaza War, he has presented himself as coming "from the periphery", not from Israel's wealthy urban elite.

His Moroccan background became election headlines earlier this month when a pro-Netanyahu speaker used a racist slur to refer to Eisenkot during a TV debate, referring to him as a Moroccan "monkey".

"These elections are about many issues," Eisenkot told the crowd gathered at the Ramle community centre. "They are about security, economy, education...but primarily, they are about the identity of the State of Israel, and what kind of Israel we want to see. A Jewish state, a democratic state, a liberal, tolerant, egalitarian state."

This is music to opposition ears, who say Benjamin Netanyahu's government is a threat to Israel's democracy, pointing to his efforts to curb the powers of the judicial system, and his refusal to establish a state commission of inquiry into the 7 October 2023 attacks on the grounds that the country's Supreme Court would be biased against him.

Eisenkot, along with other opposition leaders, has attempted to draw voters away from Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party by promising such a state inquiry, which a recent survey suggests is supported by more than 70% of Jewish Israelis.

He has also vowed to enforce court rulings on drafting ultra-Orthodox Jews into national military service - another measure that is popular with right-wing voters and opposition alike.

Benjamin Netanyahu has hit back with a campaign focused on Israel's security, and a core campaign slogan of "No Surrender".

He has repeatedly cast his rivals as soft on security, playing on the fears of some right-wing voters that Jewish opposition parties might ally with Israel's Arab parties to secure a majority, and suggesting this could compromise national security.

Around one-fifth of Israel's population is Arab - many of whom describe themselves as Palestinian citizens of Israel.

These are the first elections since the 7 October attacks, in which Hamas-led gunmen stormed through Gaza's border fence, killing almost 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.