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As Israel prepares for its upcoming Tuesday parliamentary vote, the race has once again orbited almost entirely around the polarizing figure of long-time premier Benjamin Netanyahu, rather than the widespread societal reckoning many anticipated would follow the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led incursion and the subsequent 18 months of devastating military operations in Gaza. While the two landmark events have undeniably shaped the electoral landscape, their influence is filtered almost exclusively through public scrutiny of Netanyahu’s decision-making: questions over what advance warnings of the October 7 attack he received, his handling of the subsequent conflict, and the fates of remaining Israeli captives still held in Gaza. Observers note that most Israeli voters appear to have already locked in their positions weeks ahead of polling day, with Netanyahu’s base rallying to his side either in spite of the October 7 security failures and Gaza campaign, or explicitly because of his hardline response to the attacks. This pre-determined partisan alignment has created an unusually subdued electoral environment, a stark contrast to the mass street mobilizations that swept the country less than two years prior, when hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested Netanyahu’s highly contested judicial overhaul that threatened to weaken the country’s supreme court. Further widespread demonstrations erupted in the early months of the Gaza war, as families of hostages and their supporters criticized Netanyahu for prioritizing military objectives over negotiated efforts to secure captive releases. Against that backdrop, many political analysts initially predicted Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc would face a crushing defeat at the polls, and that public tensions would reach a boiling point in the lead-up to voting. Instead, no large-scale protest movements have emerged in recent months, even as Netanyahu’s personal political standing has weakened significantly: projections show his long-ruling Likud party is on track to lose 10 to 15 Knesset seats, roughly one-third of its current parliamentary representation. For all his individual vulnerabilities, however, the broader right-wing ideological current among Israeli voters remains deeply entrenched. Three distinct far-right parties running explicit platforms that call for the mass deportation of Palestinian residents are projected to win a combined 20 seats, equivalent to one-sixth of the total 120-seat Knesset. The country’s fragmented opposition, by contrast, lacks a unified, cohesive governing platform, with the only shared priorities across disparate opposition factions being two narrow demands: that Netanyahu be removed from office, and that the country’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish population be required to serve mandatory military service, a longstanding point of public controversy. Many of the parties running in the nominal opposition camp hold firmly right-wing policy positions themselves, including former Netanyahu allies Naftali Bennett, head of the Together party, and Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the Israel Is Our Home faction, both of whom previously served as defence ministers under Netanyahu’s premiership. Even Gabi Eisenkot, the former Israel Defence Forces chief of staff widely framed in international media as the centrist, moderate challenger who can unseat Netanyahu, has run on a noticeably hardline domestic platform: he has publicly pledged to expand existing Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, and his electoral list includes multiple current and former settlers who openly supported Netanyahu’s 2023 judicial reform push. While Eisenkot previously floated the possibility of including Arab-Israeli political parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel in a future governing coalition, he has since walked back that position after facing fierce backlash from key political allies. The dual-faced messaging strategy he has deployed, projecting a relatively liberal, moderate persona for international audiences while positioning himself as a tough security-focused leader for domestic Israeli voters, has left many constituents unclear on his actual governing priorities. Bennett and Lieberman, meanwhile, have sought to court centrist and even left-leaning voters despite their long records of openly anti-Palestinian rhetoric, unwavering support for settlement expansion, and aggressive foreign policy stances. Most strikingly, almost no candidates across the entire electoral spectrum have held substantive public debates about Israel’s long-term strategic trajectory, or proposed clear policies to address the overlapping crises unfolding in Gaza, Lebanon, the occupied West Bank, and with Iran. No major opposition party has laid out a roadmap for a long-term political settlement in Gaza, or outlined plans to advance the second phase of the 2024 temporary ceasefire agreement. None have put forward concrete frameworks to curb the surge of violent settler attacks against Palestinian communities in the West Bank, or to rebuild functional working relations with the Palestinian Authority. Some analysts warn that a narrow Eisenkot election victory could even embolden extremist settler factions, who have spent years building up heavily armed local militias with deep ties to rank-and-file IDF personnel deployed across the West Bank. While Eisenkot has pledged to roll back the controversial annexation-adjacent policies implemented by current far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, and reassert formal military control over settlement zones, even long-time conservative Israeli political commentators have acknowledged that the Israeli army has already effectively lost operational control over large swathes of the West Bank to settler groups. Many security experts fear that settler factions will launch widespread, coordinated acts of civil disobedience and targeted violence against Palestinian communities to undermine any incoming Eisenkot government that attempts to restrict their autonomy, in a scenario widely described as a looming settler rebellion. One potential, though deeply controversial, compromise path for Eisenkot to defuse this far-right pressure would be to form a national unity power-sharing government with Netanyahu, similar to the disastrous 2020 rotating premiership deal Netanyahu struck with former rival Benny Gantz. Such an arrangement would be deeply unpopular with Eisenkot’s core anti-Netanyahu voter base, and Netanyahu would almost certainly refuse any power-sharing deal that did not grant him full governing primacy. Even so, the unusual arrangement could neutralize the most radical elements of the far-right bloc, and exclude hardline leaders like Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir from senior ministerial positions. The final shape of the next Israeli government will ultimately hinge on how close Netanyahu’s existing current coalition can come to the 61-seat Knesset majority threshold. Current aggregate public opinion polls show Netanyahu’s existing allied factions sitting at roughly 51 seats, but if he can narrow that gap to near the 61-seat mark, political analysts warn he stands a strong chance of poaching enough right-wing lawmakers from rival opposition parties to retain the premiership for another term.

A shocking act of gun violence unfolded on Friday inside a church in Jordan’s Karak governorate, where two armed assailants opened fire and fatally shot no fewer than seven people, per verified reports from multiple local Jordanian media outlets. Al-Mamlaka, Jordan’s official public broadcaster, cited an on-the-record source confirming the attack unfolded amid a crowded funeral procession taking place at the Hammoud Church, a gathering that drew a large number of local community members in attendance to mourn a deceased loved one. A civilian eyewitness who was present at the scene recounted to Al-Mamlaka that the two suspects arrived at the church premises via a private vehicle before storming the site and discharging their weapons nonstop for approximately five minutes, before fleeing the location immediately after the rampage. The witness further estimated that between 150 and 200 people were gathered both inside the church building and in its surrounding outdoor areas at the moment the shooting broke out, noting that the vast majority of the deceased victims fell within the 50 to 70 age demographic. In addition to the seven confirmed fatalities, at least 10 other attendees sustained gunshot wounds, with several of those injured listed in critical, life-threatening condition as of initial medical updates. Jordanian national security agencies have formally launched a full-scale investigation into the unprecedented attack, and officials confirmed in an official public statement that they have not yet successfully identified the two gunmen who carried out the assault, as an active manhunt across the Karak region is underway to apprehend the suspects. The incident marks a rare outbreak of targeted violent extremism targeting a religious gathering in the traditionally stable Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which has long maintained tight security protocols to prevent such public mass casualty events.

For three Palestinian siblings in Gaza, a nomadic, unmoored routine now defines every stretch of their young lives: 16-year-old Mariam, 14-year-old Aya, and 12-year-old Jebril Abu Asser rotate between the makeshift tents of their maternal aunts, staying exactly two nights at each relative’s shelter before moving on. This uncertain pattern began just weeks after the October 2025 ceasefire took effect, when an Israeli bomb struck the temporary Deir al-Balah tent where the children had been taking refuge with their mother, Islam, killing her instantly as the three watched. The siblings’ history of loss stretches back far earlier: their father was killed during Israel’s 2014 military offensive on Gaza, and their original Gaza City home was completely destroyed in the large-scale Israeli military campaign that launched in October 2023. Jebril, the youngest, was curled in his mother’s lap when the ordnance hit, sustaining injuries of his own alongside the unshakable trauma of witnessing her death. The three siblings are far from isolated cases. Official data from Gaza’s Ministry of Social Development confirms that since the 2023 military campaign began, a staggering 54,468 Gazan children have lost at least one parent, with thousands more joining that tally in the months following the 2025 ceasefire. The two aunts who share care of the Abu Asser children are already navigating their own crippling hardship: both are widowed, their husbands killed in the same ongoing military campaign, and each is already struggling to feed their own biological children without stable employment or consistent income. Family member Warda al-Muzeini, one of the widowed aunts caring for the orphans, explained to Middle East Eye that the children split their time between their paternal grandmother’s tent and the small shelters of their three maternal aunts, with no permanent, stable home to call their own. The three sisters pool their limited resources to support the five extra children in their care, taking turns purchasing clothing, small essentials, and tiny amounts of pocket money whenever they can scrape together the funds. Official aggregated figures paint a grim picture of widespread bereavement across the Gaza Strip: the territory is now home to a minimum of 64,000 widows and 71,000 orphaned children, a count that includes people who lost loved ones in the 2023 conflict as well as survivors of earlier Israeli military operations in the enclave. Roughly 3,000 of these orphaned children have no registered legal guardian, custodian, or caregiver of any kind, leaving them entirely adrift amid the widespread devastation. Aziza al-Kahlout, a spokesperson for Gaza’s Ministry of Social Development, warned that these cold statistics fail to capture the unrelenting daily trauma facing bereaved children and widowed women. For orphaned children, the loss of a parent is not just an emotional blow: it robs them of safety, access to education, and the very chance to experience a normal childhood, forcing many to take on backbreaking adult responsibilities long before they are emotionally or physically ready. Widowed women, meanwhile, carry a crippling double burden: they must act as their family’s sole breadwinner while also raising their children amid shattered infrastructure, widespread food insecurity, and a total lack of basic public services. Kahlout flagged that worsening economic collapse and the absence of adequate shelter are driving a sharp, deeply worrying spike in child labour, school dropouts, and underage early marriages among vulnerable orphaned populations. For a small subset of these orphaned children, the grief carries an extra, isolating cruelty: they are the sole surviving members of their entire immediate family, left to process the total erasure of their loved ones with no one to share their memories or their pain. Thirteen-year-old Wafaa al-Attar is one of these survivors. In February 2024, when she was just 10 years old, Wafaa stepped out of her family’s Deir al-Balah apartment to charge her father’s dead mobile phone at her uncle’s nearby home, where solar power was still available. Seconds before she stepped through her uncle’s door, a massive Israeli air strike levelled the multi-storey building where her entire family had been sheltering, killing her parents and her four younger siblings – the youngest of whom was only nine months old. Wafaa sustained minor shrapnel wounds in the blast, and spent hours in the local hospital before her uncle broke the devastating news that no member of her immediate family had survived. For months after the attack, Wafaa struggled to process the magnitude of her loss, repeatedly wishing she had stayed inside the home so she could have died alongside her family rather than living on alone. Though she eventually found refuge with her uncle and his growing family, who offered her steady emotional support and encouraged her to stay strong, she says the empty space left by her murdered relatives can never be filled. “No one could ever replace my own family,” she told Middle East Eye, still carrying the quiet, unshakable weight of losing every person she once loved in a single, unthinkable instant.