Eisenkot Pledges to Destroy Hamas, Rivals Trade Blame

Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot pledged at the Gaza border to destroy Hamas’s military wing and dismantle its leadership within 18 months of becoming prime minister. With the October 27 elections approaching, military action and Gaza’s future rule sit at the center of his proposed government’s agenda.

“I pledge that within 18 months of taking office as prime minister, Hamas will no longer rule the Gaza Strip. We will destroy Hamas’ military wing,” Eisenkot said. He said his government would pursue that goal either through action based on President Trump’s framework, accepted by Netanyahu’s government, or through military and operational capabilities. The routes differ, but Eisenkot promised the same outcome: a future government and its security institutions would decide to end Hamas’s rule.

A plan built inside the apparatus

Eisenkot said he would develop a plan with defense establishment chiefs, restore the National Security Council, and present it to the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. His past work in the IDF, Mossad and security establishments, he said, gave him confidence he could dismantle Hamas.

His career took him through the IDF’s Golani infantry brigade and Northern Command before he became chief of staff from 2015 - 2019. Eisenkot said intelligence reports and senior security officials indicated Hamas was “restoring its military capabilities, reestablishing itself in the Gaza Strip, and attempting to carry out terrorist acts against us.” He cited those claims in arguing for a new national strategy, placing the machinery of government and the military at its center.

Eisenkot also assailed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s record. “Let it be clear: as long as Benjamin Netanyahu is in power, Hamas will remain in power,” he said. He called for “courageous decisions” and a national strategy to prevent another disaster. Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party countered by attacking the prospect of Arab parties joining a coalition: “How would you destroy Hamas without getting permission from your partners, Mansour [Abbas] and [Ahmed] Tibi?”

That charge runs up against a record in which Abbas’s Ra’am joined a coalition during strikes against Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Those actions included an IDF operation targeting Hamas tunnels days after the coalition formed in June 2021, as well as the 2022 Operation Breaking Dawn. The parties’ statements put coalition arithmetic at the heart of the debate over who can authorize military action.

Inquiry, conscription and the campaign fight

Eisenkot renewed his promise to establish a State Commission of Inquiry into government failures on October 7 within 150 days of a new government’s establishment. The article says the political echelon repeatedly blocked the commission, while Netanyahu repeatedly opposed judicial appointments as part of the investigation. Eisenkot’s proposed inquiry would thus come from a government whose formation and choices remain central to the dispute over accountability.

He also vowed to pass a conscription law requiring haredim, or ultra-Orthodox Jews, to serve in the IDF. That proposal, like his Gaza pledge, puts state authority over military service on the election agenda.

Eisenkot said he wouldn’t allow Abbas or Tibi’s Joint List into his coalition and told The Jerusalem Post he didn’t consider them viable partners. “Whoever does not accept that Hamas is a terrorist organization, that it needs to be dismantled and destroyed, will not be a partner in the next government,” he said. He added that he couldn’t see an Arab party accepting his principles.

Other parties aligned with Netanyahu’s bloc challenged Eisenkot’s claim to military leadership. People of Israel leader Ofer Winter accused him of supporting “containment” and negotiated arrangements, and criticized his call to stop the war before entering Rafah. Winter also named Yair Golan, Aharon Haliva, and Herzi Halevi, saying Eisenkot appointed them and promoted doctrines that led to October 7.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Eisenkot had demanded a complete halt to the war, a full withdrawal from Gaza and the release of all terrorists from Israeli prisons while in the cabinet. Ben-Gvir also said Eisenkot opposed taking Rafah, entering the Philadelphi Corridor and taking the security zone in Lebanon. Voters face rival claims about who can direct the war—and who failed to do so. The briefing ended where the campaign argument began: leaders promising control over military institutions and Gaza’s political future.