Shin Bet chief David Zini confirmed on Sunday that he decided against assigning an armed security detail to Gadi Eisenkot, the Yashar party leader and a leading opposition candidate for prime minister. Zini said he told Eisenkot directly: here is the number for the emergency hotline, if something happens that is the number. He said the decision was his alone and that he takes full responsibility for it.
The refusal came despite a reported instruction from Benjamin Netanyahu that Zini provide Eisenkot with adequate security. Supreme Court deputy president Noam Sohlberg, who chairs the Central Elections Committee, said he has no authority over candidate security either, and that the Shin Bet guards only individuals the government has designated for protection. Eisenkot currently holds no government position.
Eisenkot's campaign points to specific threats rather than a general concern. His son, Master Sergeant Gal Eisenkot, was killed in Gaza in December 2023, and graffiti was later found on the grave reading that it is a shame the father does not protect the soldiers. Security officials have also warned recently about Iranian interference in the election, a threat that touches candidates as much as institutions.
The dispute is unfolding six weeks before an election that already has Zini's institution at its centre in a different way. A Zman Yisrael poll has Yashar at 25 seats against 21 for Likud, putting Eisenkot ahead of Netanyahu in the same contest whose security arrangements the Shin Bet chief has just decided, on his own account, without instruction from anyone above him.