Just one week before elections, a Walla! poll published on Tuesday indicates a growing distance between Gadi Eisenkot and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a further weakening of the pro-Netanyahu bloc.
However, despite the anti-Netanyahu bloc's lead, neither bloc receives a 61-seat majority, and the small parties may hold the key to forming the next government.
According to the poll, conducted on Monday by Lazar Research, Eisenkot's Yashar gains a seat compared to the previous poll on October 12th, winning 23. Netanyahu's Likud loses a seat since the previous poll, winning only 19, giving Eisenkot a four-seat lead, compared to the two-seat lead in the previous poll.
Naftali Bennett's Together party wins 14, becoming the third-largest party. Eisenkot's and Bennett's success in the poll comes on the heels of Benny Gantz pulling out of the race.
At the same time, two opposition parties lost seats since the previous poll. Yair Golan's Democrats lost one seat, dropping to nine, and Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beytenu dropped to eight.
Ofer Winter's Amcha Yisrael does not pass the electoral threshold, winning only 2.9% of the vote.
On the other hand, the Reservists-Economic Party led by Yoaz Hendel and Yaron Zelekha continues to pass the threshold, maintaining four seats as in the previous poll. In an event where neither of the blocs wins an outright majority, those four seats would make Hendel and Zelekha kingmakers.
Aryeh Deri's Shas gains one seat, bringing it to eight, while United Torah Judaism drops to seven. Itamar Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudi remains at eight seats, while the Religious Zionist Party-Zehut alliance, led by Bezalel Smotrich and Moshe Feiglin, holds steady at six.
Among the Arab parties, the United Arab List (Ra'am), led by Mansour Abbas and Yoav Segalovitz, gains one seat, reaching six, while the Joint List remains at eight seats.
The distribution of seats among the political blocs highlights the anticipated difficulties in forming the next government. Netanyahu's bloc loses one seat, falling to just 48 seats, compared to 49 in the previous poll. The opposition parties remain at 54 seats, maintaining a six-seat advantage over Netanyahu's bloc.