ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - As Israeli parliamentary elections loom, a former military chief of staff on Tuesday announced the beginning of his campaign to unseat incumbent premier Benjamin Netanyahu, throwing his hat into the ring of an increasingly feverish race featuring multiple ex-prime ministers.

Gadi Eisenkot launched the campaign for his Yashar party ahead with the declaration, "Israel deserves to open a new chapter. We will write it together," with ballots set to be cast no later than October 27.

Eisenkot, the child of Moroccan Jewish parents, has been a sharp critic of Netanyahu’s policies, categorically rejecting his proposal on Saturday for a “broad national government” and ruling out any possibility of participating in a coalition led by the incumbent prime minister.

“A prime minister who blindly led Israel to a historic low, who works day and night to sow division and incitement, and who devotes all his energy to encouraging draft evasion is unworthy of this nation, and certainly has no standing to preach about unity,” he said.

Deepening divisions within Israeli politics are largely driven by Netanyahu’s persistent occupation, settlement expansion, and regional military escalations, but have been further inflamed by the high-stakes debate over ultra-Orthodox conscription.

Two of the most prominent voices calling for Haredi conscription have been Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who announced a new joint coalition in late April.

Lapid had previously accused the government of driving the country toward a "security disaster" due to a shortage of combat soldiers, echoing a warning reportedly delivered in March to the security cabinet by military chief Eyal Zamir.

He asserted that "the Chief of Staff is warning of the collapse of the army — and the government is ignoring it," while further arguing that the administration "is sending the army into a multi-front war without a strategy, without the necessary means, and with far too few soldiers."

Lapid has also been calling for drafting men from the ultra-Orthodox community, who have largely been exempt from military service since Israel’s self-proclamation as a nation in 1948.

While military service is mandatory in Israel, men who devote themselves full-time to religious study have historically received exemptions under arrangements established when the ultra-Orthodox population was much smaller.

An i24 survey found that 70 percent of coalition voters opposed the idea of Gadi Eisenkot serving as prime minister in a national unity government, while 22 percent said they would support such a move in the interest of national unity.

However, polling condcuted by the Israeli media outlet Channel 13 shows different preferences, with Eisenkot leading Netanyahu 43 percent to 39 percent in a head-to-head matchup. However, when the choice is between Netanyahu and Bennett, the prime minister holds a slight edge with 44 percent compared to Bennett’s 41 percent. When voters were asked to choose between the two challengers directly, Eisenkot emerged as the clear favorite, doubling Bennett’s support with 42 percent compared to the former premier's 21 percent.

At the same time, the same forecast indicates that a merger between Bennett and Eisenkot, with the latter at the helm, would secure 37 seats – an increase of two compared to running individually – leaving Likud with 23 seats.

A mainstay of the ultra-conservative Likud party, Netanyahu, however, depends on ultra-Orthodox parties to keep his governing coalition intact and has therefore resisted efforts to end the exemption, a reliance that has only deepened as he battles long-running corruption charges and faces internal waning public trust.

For nearly six years, he has been entangled in a protracted legal scandal, facing charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust across three intertwined cases. They all boil down to the same core accusation: that he allegedly traded political favors to wealthy tycoons in exchange for extravagant gifts and a media machine groomed to flatter him and his family.