📊 CHANNEL 13 POLL: EISENKOT LEADS AS COALITION MATH REMAINS TIGHT: Channel 13’s latest election poll gives Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar! a record 26 seats, ahead of Likud with 23 and Bennett with 13. The non-Arab opposition bloc reaches 59 seats compared with 51 for Netanyahu’s current coalition parties, while Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al hold another 10 seats. Eisenkot also leads Netanyahu 47% to 38% on suitability for prime minister.
Across recent surveys from Channels 12, 13, 14, KAN and i24, Netanyahu’s bloc ranges from 50 to 63 seats, averaging roughly 55 with a median of 52. Eisenkot has been considerably more stable at 23 to 26 seats, while Likud and Bennett show substantially wider variation. Channel 14’s 63-seat projection therefore remains the strongest current Netanyahu scenario rather than the consensus across pollsters.
The electoral threshold could ultimately prove decisive. Gantz, Tropper-Hendel, Erdan-Edelstein and Balad are below the 3.25% threshold in Channel 13’s poll, while Smotrich’s Religious Zionism clears it with five seats. Small movements around the threshold could redistribute several mandates and significantly alter the coalition map.
Taken together, the polling suggests Eisenkot currently appears to be Netanyahu’s strongest and most consistent challenger, while neither side holds a dependable 61-seat majority across the wider polling landscape. The opposition is approaching an independent majority in several surveys, but the race remains highly sensitive to Likud and Bennett’s true strength and to which smaller parties ultimately cross the threshold.
Separately, Hadash-Ta’al and Balad announced that they will run on a joint Knesset list without Ra’am and Mansour Abbas. The announced order is: 1. Hadash chairman Yousef Jabareen, 2. Tibi, 3. Abu Shehadeh, 4. Hadash, 5. Balad, 6. Hadash, 7. Hadash, 8. Balad and 9. Ta’al, with a rotation agreement involving the sixth-place candidate.
Bennett also attacked Eisenkot’s position, saying: “Exempting 30% from military service will lead nowhere — just another round at the expense of the latest naïve politician.” He added: “We’ll mobilize the security agencies against Qatar; we’ll bring Egypt into Gaza instead of Turkey and Qatar; we’ll strike Iran in response to Hezbollah fire.”
⚓ U.S. OPERATES HORMUZ SHIPPING CORRIDOR: The U.S. military has quietly established a shipping corridor in and out of the Strait of Hormuz that has been operating for several weeks, according to Axios.
Between 15 and 20 tankers have entered and exited the strait through a southern channel along the coast of Oman. Approximately 10 million barrels of oil per day, roughly half the pre-war volume, are being transported out of the strait and injected into the global energy market.
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