Israelis favor Netanyahu, Eisenkot debate as poll shows PM's bloc ahead - poll

Support for the debate stood at 38% among respondents planning to vote for Likud, according to KAN, compared with 80% among those intending to vote for Eisenkot's Yashar party.

In a new poll published by Kan 11 News on Sunday evening, more than half of respondents, 54%, said they supported holding a televised debate between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot ahead of the elections.

Support for the debate stood at 38% among respondents planning to vote for Likud, according to KAN, compared with 80% among those intending to vote for Eisenkot's Yashar party.

Yashar continues to lead Likud in the polls, but Netanyahu's political bloc maintains an advantage, per the survey.

The poll projected Yashar to win 22 seats in Israel's 120-seat Knesset, compared with 20 for Likud.

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett's B'Yachad party ranked third with 12 seats, followed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit party, which climbed to nine seats.

Four parties were projected to win eight seats each: The Democrats, led by Yair Golan; Yisrael Beytenu, led by Avigdor Liberman; United Torah Judaism; and the Joint List.

Shas was projected to win seven seats, while Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionism party and the Arab party Ra'am each received five seats.

Two additional parties were projected to clear the electoral threshold, each winning four seats: Ofer Winter's People of Israel party and the joint party led by Yoaz Hendel and Yaron Zelekha.

Despite Yashar's lead over Likud, the poll showed Netanyahu's political bloc winning 53 seats, compared with 50 for Eisenkot's bloc, giving the prime minister's camp a three-seat advantage.

Thirty percent of voters remain undecided ahead of elections

Thirty percent of respondents said they had not yet decided which party to vote for in the upcoming elections, according to KAN. Among those planning to vote for a party in Netanyahu's governing coalition, 24% remained undecided about which party to support, compared with 20% of those intending to vote for an opposition party.

The poll also found that 26% of respondents planned to vote for a party from a different political bloc than the one they supported in the previous elections, according to the KAN report.

The KAN report also noted that among those planning to vote for a coalition party, 26% had backed the opposing bloc in the previous elections, while 28% of those intending to vote for an opposition party had previously supported the coalition.

Meanwhile, 21% of respondents said they were considering not voting at all in the upcoming elections, including 23% of coalition supporters and 16% of opposition supporters.