Benny Gantz Drops Out of Israel's Election Race

Benny Gantz announced personally on Monday, October 19, 2026, that he is dropping out of Israel's election race ahead of the national polls scheduled for October 27. His decision means that his Blue and White party will not stand in that upcoming national vote, with the withdrawal coming eight days before election day, according to The Times of Israel and JTA.

Gantz is the leader of Blue and White, the Israeli political party that is known in Hebrew by the name Kahol Lavan. Opinion polls conducted ahead of the upcoming national vote had placed his party below 3.25 percent in terms of expected voter support. That 3.25 percent figure is the minimum share of the national vote that a party must win to enter the 120-seat Knesset, Israel's parliament, according to Al Jazeera.

Gantz is a former chief of the Israeli army and also a former defence minister of the Israeli government. He served in a national unity government, an arrangement joining rivals in one coalition, alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from 2020 to 2021. He joined the war cabinet led by Netanyahu after the attacks of October 7, 2023, becoming part of the emergency leadership during the war.

He quit that emergency cabinet in early June 2024, ending his service in that wartime forum. When announcing his withdrawal on October 19, 2026, Gantz took personal responsibility for the electoral failure that preceded his decision to leave the race. He also urged the country's leaders in Israel not to return to the political divisions that had marked the period before October 7, according to The Times of Israel.