Gadi Eisenkot could be Israel’s next leader. His military experience will drive his approach.

JERUSALEM — In 2019, Gadi Eisenkot, then at the end of a four-year run as chief of staff of Israel’s military, gave an interview to The New York Times.

In it, he proudly talked about having driven Jerusalem to take a more direct confrontation with Iran, including claiming to strike “thousands” of Iranian targets in Syria. He also warned that Iran was seeking to “strangle Israel from Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza Strip,” a multifront conflict that Jerusalem would need to be prepared to fight and win in.

Today, Israel is engaged in exactly that kind of multifront conflict — and Eisenkot is hoping to once again lead efforts to plan for victory, only this time as the next Prime Minister of Israel.

On Nov. 7, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog announced that he had concluded discussions with the various Israeli political parties in the wake of the Oct. 27 election, and tasked Eisenkot, the leading opposition figure to sitting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with forming a government.

It won’t be an easy task. Out of the 120 members of the incoming Knesset, parties representing 67 members recommended Eisenkot, and only 46 recommended Netanyahu. Eisenkot could have up to 42 days to try to form a government, but that is not guaranteed as a deadline; it took 80 days for Israel to form a government after elections in 2021.

To form a new government, Eisenkot will need the support of 61 Knesset members. His Yashar party has 21 seats. His preferred coalition partners include the Together party, with 12 seats; the left-leaning Democrats, with eight seats: and Yisrael Beiteinu, which has seven, for a total of 48.

Eisenkot has also been backed by the majority Arab parties, Ra’am and the Joint List, who have 11 and 8 seats respectively — enough to get him over the line on paper. However, the leader of Yisrael Beiteinu, Avigdor Liberman, has rejected forming a government with the Arab parties.

Which is to say, there is no guarantee that Eisenkot will be able to make the complex horse-trading work to form a government. And as he tries to manage that, he is also warning Netanyahu away from any expansion of conflict in the region, writing in a Wednesday letter that the current government must “[e]xercise restraint and caution against dangerous moves that can wait until a new government that has won the Knesset’s confidence is sworn in.” He added that security forces should only be deployed due to a “direct and immediate threat.”

A day later, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said “we do not require approval from the opposition or any legal authority to direct the IDF to carry out targeted operations,” referencing Israel’s operations in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. Katz also met with Israel’s chief of staff on Thursday while Eisenkot met with Netanyahu about the security situation.

If Eisenkot does manage to form a new government, there are hints as to how he could look to shape defense policy in his past experiences with the IDF and his previous statements since entering politics. 

A History of War

Eisenkot was born in 1960 in the Israeli city of Tiberias, which sits on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. His family, which had emigrated from Morocco before Eisenkot was born, moved to the southern Israeli city of Eilat when he was a child. He enlisted in the IDF at age 18 and served in the Golani Brigade, one of Israel’s most famous infantry brigades. The brigade was also historically known for being a place of empowerment for soldiers from Mizrahi backgrounds, meaning Jewish immigrants from Arab and Muslim countries.

Eisenkot served in the IDF for four decades, rising to command positions, heading the Judea and Samaria Division during the Second Intifada and heading operations in Northern Command in the wake of the 2006 Lebanon War. He became deputy chief of staff in 2013 and then head of the IDF in 2015. He was in charge of Northern Command during the Israeli strike on a Syrian nuclear facility in 2007.

His IDF biography notes that “Eisenkot was the Chief of General Staff during Operation Good Neighbor — which redefined the IDF’s role in the Middle East — and Operation Northern Shield, which not only emphasized the threat of terrorist organizations but also exhibited the strength of the IDF in combating those threats.” Good Neighbor was an operation that provided aid to Syrians during the Syrian civil war, while Northern Shield was a short operation in December 2018 aimed at eliminating Hezbollah cross-border tunnels from Lebanon.

During his time as chief of staff, Israel began shifting resources to focus on Hezbollah and Iran’s role in Syria. “We are in the midst of a tense and challenging time. The Middle East is transforming into an unrecognizable reality characterized by instability and volatility. These challenges require the IDF, more than ever, to be determined, sophisticated and measured,” Eisenkot said when he took over command in 2015.

With the Syrian civil war raging, the Iranians had taken advantage of the chaos to establish bases and move weapons via Syria to Lebanon. Israel acted to stop this entrenchment through what was called the Campaign Between the Wars (CBW).

Overshadowed by the war that began with the Hamas attack and massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, the CBW involved thousands of strikes in Syria occurring over regular intervals — effectively, a nonstop use of force to ensure that an enemy cannot build up to the point of launching a true military campaign.

The former general is considered hawkish on how he would deal with Hezbollah, referencing the “Dahiya doctrine” of striking the Beirut neighborhood where Hezbollah has forces. On the Iran nuclear threat, a report at The Jerusalem Post indicated in September 2026 that Eisenkot has suggested a tactic of creating “kill zones” around various nuclear sites, though Eisenkot has not directly commented on that report.

Soon after Eisenkot left the army, there was speculation that he could enter politics, which is a traditional route for Israeli top commanders. While Israel has a three-year “cooling off” period before military officials can run for office, at least 14 of the 24 chiefs of staff since Israel’s founding in 1948 have gone on to enter politics, including Yitzhak Rabin, who became prime minister twice, and Ehud Barak, who also held the office. And both of Eisenkot’s predecessors at the helm of the IDF, Gabi Ashkenazi and Benny Gantz, went into politics.

Eisenkot ran as part of the National Unity Party slate, a coalition of several parties, in the 2022 elections. He has served in the Knesset since, where he has sat on a subcommittee examining the IDF’s actions around the Oct. 7 attacks and on a number of committees for defense issues and foreign affairs. He also served as chair of the Caucus for Advancing a Regional Security Arrangements and the Caucus for IDF Reservists.

After the Oct. 7 attack, Eisenkot and Gantz joined the Israeli war cabinet run by Netanyahu. However, Eisenkot has been critical of Israel’s objectives in Gaza, especially after his son was killed there in December 2023. He said in 2024 that Israel should not be deceived into believing Hamas could be completely defeated, a break from Netanyahu’s general statements. Eisenkot also opposed a preemptive strike on Hezbollah during an Oct. 11, 2023 cabinet meeting, over concerns it would split Israel’s military focus.

Eisenkot resigned from the cabinet in June 2024, saying “despite the efforts of many, alongside those of my colleague, the cabinet you [Netanyahu] headed was prevented for a long while from making determining decisions, which were needed to realize the war’s goals and improve Israel’s strategic position.” In June 2025 he also resigned from the Knesset and the National Unity party.

As Israel geared up for elections, he urged Gantz to resign from his party leadership role in September 2025. Days later, Eisenkot founded the Yashar party that would run in the October 2026 elections.

The former chief of staff has also staked out a position on a major domestic issue, saying Israel should draft ultra-Orthodox Jews into the army. Currently they are exempt, and around 50,000 avoid service.