📊 EISENKOT LEADS CHANNEL 13 POLL, BUT 61-SEAT PATH REMAINS UNCERTAIN: Channel 13 projects Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar! at a record 26 seats, ahead of Likud at 23 and Bennett at 13. The non-Arab opposition bloc reaches 59 seats, compared with 51 for Netanyahu’s current coalition parties, with Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al holding another 10. Eisenkot also leads Netanyahu 47% to 38% on suitability for prime minister.
Across recent Channels 12, 13, 14, KAN and i24 surveys, Netanyahu’s bloc ranges from 50 to 63 seats, averaging roughly 55 with a median of 52. Eisenkot has remained comparatively stable at 23–26 seats, while Likud and Bennett show wider variation. Channel 14’s 63-seat result therefore represents the strongest current Netanyahu scenario rather than the broader polling consensus.
The electoral threshold remains a major variable. Gantz, Tropper-Hendel, Erdan-Edelstein and Balad fall below 3.25% in Channel 13’s survey, while Religious Zionism clears it with five seats. Small movements around the threshold could redistribute several mandates. Taken together, the polling currently places Eisenkot as Netanyahu’s most consistent challenger, but neither camp holds a dependable 61-seat majority across the wider survey landscape.
Separately, Hadash-Ta’al and Balad announced a joint Knesset list without Ra’am and Mansour Abbas, including a rotation agreement involving the sixth slot. Bennett also attacked Eisenkot’s military-service position and said his own approach would include mobilizing security agencies against Qatar, bringing Egypt into Gaza instead of Turkey and Qatar, and striking Iran in response to Hezbollah fire.
⚓ U.S. SHIPPING CORRIDOR MOVES OIL THROUGH HORMUZ: The U.S. military has established a shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz that Axios says has been operating for several weeks. Between 15 and 20 tankers have entered and exited via a southern channel along Oman’s coast, moving approximately 10 million barrels of oil per day into the global market, roughly half the pre-war volume.
🌍 ISRAEL HIGHLIGHTS SEVEN DECADES OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN MISSIONS: For World Humanitarian Day, Israel reviewed major overseas rescue and medical deployments dating back to its first mission following the 1953 earthquakes in Greece. Subsequent operations included approximately 350 personnel sent to Mexico after the 1985 earthquake; teams that rescued 12 people and treated around 1,200 injured in Türkiye in 1999; a field hospital in Haiti in 2010 that treated about 1,110 patients and performed 317 surgeries; and approximately 270 personnel deployed to Nepal in 2015, where Israeli teams treated 1,600 injured, performed around 90 surgeries and assisted with eight births.
Israeli teams later treated 725 patients and performed 92 life-saving surgeries after the 2021 explosions in Bata, Equatorial Guinea. Following the 2023 Türkiye earthquakes, Israeli rescuers pulled 19 people alive from the rubble and provided medical care and assistance to approximately 180 others. In 2026, around 50 Israeli personnel were sent to Venezuela for engineering assessments, search-and-rescue expertise and development of a national recovery plan. Together with the Israeli delegation currently operating in Colombia, the missions form part of hundreds of Israeli humanitarian assistance operations conducted worldwide.
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