Netanyahu
The former army chief, 66, is the son of Moroccan immigrants and has emerged as Netanyahu’s main rival. A centre-right politician, he founded the Yashar party in 2025 after resigning from Netanyahu’s war cabinet in 2024 and has since been a vocal critic of the prime minister. A former prime minister himself, Bennett, 54, leads the centre-right Beyahad party, which is polling third. A former television journalist, Lapid founded the centrist Yesh Atid party in 2012 and quickly emerged as one of Netanyahu’s leading opponents. The 62-year-old has served as finance and foreign minister and briefly held the premiership in 2022 under a power-sharing deal with Naftali Bennett, with whom he is once again allied. Lieberman, who was born in Soviet Moldova in 1958, immigrated to Israel in the late 1970s and became a prominent figure in its political scene. Leader of the Arab-Israeli Raam party, Abbas is seeking to mobilise Arab voters, who make up about 20% of Israel’s population. A former dentist, Abbas made history in 2021 when Raam became the first Arab party to join an Israeli governing coalition, led by Naftali Bennett.
He has vowed to mobilise voters against Netanyahu’s government, which he has described as “racist” and “fascist”. Bennett is seeking to attract right-wing voters disillusioned with Netanyahu, though he has left open the possibility of including the incumbent prime minister in an opposition-led coalition despite their political rivalry. A hardline nationalist on security and a staunch secularist, he is the founder of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, initially drawing support from Russian-speaking voters before expanding his base. Abbas could again play a pivotal role in coalition-building if opposition parties rely on his lawmakers to keep Netanyahu out of power.