Gadi Eisenkot

Israelis are about to vote in the country's first general election since the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023. According to the polls, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his Likud Party face their steepest competition yet from Gadi Eisenkot and his relatively new party, Yashar!Gadi Eisenkot was born in Tiberias to working-class parents from Morocco. If he wins, it would make him Israel's first Mizrahi prime minister, meaning that, like around half the country's population, he has Middle Eastern and North African Jewish heritage rather than a European, or Ashkenazi, background.Joining the Israel Defense Forces' Golani Brigade for national service in 1978, Eisenkot ascended through the ranks, becoming commander of the brigade in 1997. He went on to become Chief of the General Staff of the IDF in 2015.After retiring from the military, he won a seat in the Israeli parliament and joined Netanyahu's war cabinet in the immediate aftermath of the 7 October 2023