# Yesh Atid Loses a Second Member in a Week as Stern Heads for Eisenkot

> Elazar Stern resigned from the Knesset after eleven years with the party and is expected to run with Yashar, which polls at 25 seats against Likud's 21.

- Source: Israel Today
- Canonical URL: https://israeltoday.news/article/stern-quits-yesh-atid-for-yashar
- Author: Noa Bar-Lev
- Section: Politics
- Published: 2026-08-14T12:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-14T12:30:00.000Z
- Tags: Knesset, Elections, Yesh Atid

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Elazar Stern announced on Friday that he is resigning his Knesset seat after eleven years with Yesh Atid. He is expected to join Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar for the election on 27 October. He said that if he remains in politics he will keep working with Yesh Atid to get the country out of its present situation, which is the wording of someone leaving a party rather than a camp.

He is the second to go in a matter of days. Yoav Segalovitz left shortly before him and is in talks about joining the Ra'am slate. Yair Lapid thanked Stern for his years of friendship and partnership and wished him well, and there was no other response from the party.

Stern is a retired major general who headed the IDF Manpower Directorate, and he sat with Tzipi Livni's Hatnua before Yesh Atid. His time at the directorate produced a controversy in 2021 over his handling of anonymous complaints of sexual harassment.

The polling explains the direction of travel. Yashar stands at 25 seats and Likud at 21, with the change bloc on 58, the pro Netanyahu parties on 50 and the Arab parties on 12. Fifty eight is three short of a majority, and the bloc it belongs to is not gaining seats so much as rearranging them. A member moving from one of its parties to another does not change the total. It changes who leads it.

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Originally published by Israel Today. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://israeltoday.news/article/stern-quits-yesh-atid-for-yashar.