While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that elections will only take place on their set date in 2026, the public disagrees with the majority of Israelis calling for early elections, according to a new poll published by Maariv on Sunday.
According to the poll, 37.8% of Israelis believe elections should take place now while 19.2% said a decision should be reached now to hold elections after the war. Another 43% responded that there shouldn't be discussions about whether or not there should be elections until the war is over.
Netanyahu and other members of the coalition have insisted throughout the war that the current government will serve its full term, which is set to end in 2026.
When asked about elections on Saturday, Netanyahu stated "The elections have a date in a few years. I don't suggest getting involved in this during the war. We need unity right now. We need to unite - we still have a quarter of Hamas' fighting force to eliminate. We are dismantling their infrastructure, we have returned more than half of our abductees and will return the rest. We need to unite for the war effort."
Earlier this month, Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf sparked outrage, including from members of his own party, after saying: "Does the government need to fall on the day after? What connection is there between the government and this war?"
Calls for elections escalate
Several polls in the past few months have found that the majority of Israelis want elections at the latest right after the war ends.
On Saturday, some of the groups that took part in the anti-judicial reform protests launched new protests demanding the declaration of elections as soon as possible.
On Saturday, Histadrut Chairman Arnon Bar David called for elections as well, saying "We need to change the State of Israel from end to end because it is impossible to continue like this, this is my task for the coming months."
"We must have elections, we must restart the State of Israel. An agreed date for the elections should be set, by December of this year. It is impossible to continue with the 120 people sitting in the Knesset today who produce almost nothing for us. They may have to take to the streets here, and I hope we don't have to get to a wave of protests to bring about elections," said Bar David. The Histadrut chairman added that the labor union would join protests calling for elections.
"We went through the worst year in the history of the State of Israel. A year of sectarianism, division, social polarization, and a judicial upheaval. Someone made us enemies of each other, divided us sector by sector, and in the end, the writing was on the wall," added the Histadrut chairman. "Instead of dealing with our enemies and their intensification, they dealt with unimportant things here. The prime minister took us to the edge. There is only one way out - elections. The prime minister should first of all take responsibility for what happened and then make his decisions. If I were him - I would resign."