Gadi Eisenkot was chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces and later served as a minister in Benjamin Netanyahu's government. He now leads the Yashar party. On December 7, 2023, the first day of Hanukkah, Eisenkot was visiting a military base in southern Israel when he saw a screen showing the locations of Israeli troops in Gaza. He recognised the position of the division in which his son, Gal, was serving. Hours later, he received news that Israeli forces had suffered casualties. Gal, 25, a soldier in the elite Maglan commando unit, had been gravely wounded by a Hamas explosive device near a tunnel in Jabalia, in northern Gaza. He died in hospital that day.
Later in the war, two of Eisenkot's nephews were also killed on the battlefield. According to the report, Eisenkot and those closest to him point to his son's death as the moment he decided to run for prime minister. Nearly three years on, he is now the most formidable political rival of his former boss, Benjamin Netanyahu, and leads in the polls ahead of Tuesday's election.