Former IDF Chief Eisenkot Questions Netanyahu Government's Gaza Strategy

Gadi Eisenkot, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, told supporters on 5 May 2026 that the Netanyahu government's approach to the Gaza campaign had failed to achieve its core military objective. Speaking in his capacity as head of the opposition Yessher party, Eisenkot said the number of Hamas fighters currently operating in Gaza stood at approximately 35,000 — a figure he said was comparable to estimates that existed before the ground operation commenced. "The presence of 35,000 Hamas militants is a grave failure," Eisenkot said, adding that he did not believe the sitting government possessed the capacity to make the "profound change" required to alter the trajectory of the campaign.

The remarks landed in an already fractured political environment. Three of Eisenkot's specific assertions — the 35,000-fighter figure, the framing of the current situation as a failure, and the critique of the government's strategic capacity — carry weight precisely because they come from someone who spent decades inside the military establishment he is now assessing. As chief of staff from 2019 to 2023, Eisenkot oversaw operational planning across multiple fronts. His political entry after the 7 October 2023 attacks placed him inside the wartime coalition briefly, before he broke with the government over its postwar vision. The fact that a figure of that institutional standing is now publicly characterising the campaign as unsuccessful gives the opposition a credibility anchor that general political criticism lacks.

The political calculus around Gaza remains the defining tension inside the coalition. Israel's stated objectives — the return of remaining hostages and the dismantling of Hamas's military capacity — have never been formally reconciled with one another. Each objective demands a different trade-off: a hostage deal requires negotiating with Hamas; the destruction of Hamas's military capacity requires continued military pressure, potentially without any political arrangement. Within the coalition, those two goals have produced competing pressure groups. Cabinet members have publicly diverged on whether a ceasefire-for-hostages framework is compatible with the stated military objectives. The families of the remaining hostages have maintained sustained demonstrations demanding a diplomatic resolution, pressure that has not abated as the ground operation has extended.

The 35,000 figure Eisenkot cited warrants scrutiny on its own terms. Military assessments of Hamas's order of battle are contested. The Israeli military has published periodic assessments of fighters eliminated, infrastructure destroyed, and tunnels neutralised — figures the government has used to support a narrative of steady progress. Opposition critics, including Eisenkot, have cited the continued presence of an organized fighting force in Gaza as evidence that the campaign's most fundamental stated goal remains unmet. The discrepancy between the government's framing of ongoing operations as successful and Eisenkot's description of the same ground as a failure reflects a deeper disagreement over what victory looks like, and on what timeline. The Telegram posts reporting Eisenkot's remarks did not provide additional context around how the 35,000 figure was calculated or which specific Hamas units the estimate covers.

The broader structural question the remarks raise is whether the current government is capable of managing an endgame in Gaza at all. Eisenkot's stated view — that it is not — points to a gap between the political coalition's stated commitments and what the operational reality on the ground permits. Coalition partners hold divergent positions on governance, reconstruction, and the terms under which any cessation of hostilities might be structured. The international pressure on Israel to move toward a political resolution has intensified, with mediators in Cairo and Doha continuing to push ceasefire frameworks that the government has publicly rejected in their current form. What a sustainable arrangement looks like, and who is willing to sell it politically, remains the unresolved question that Eisenkot's remarks sharpen rather than answer.

Wire provenance

This editorial synthesis draws on the following public wire/social posts:

• https://t.me/alalamarabic/987654
• https://t.me/alalamarabic/987655
• https://t.me/alalamarabic/987656