Gantz Quits Knesset Race, Shifting Political Landscape

Good Morning, Israel · Tuesday, October 20, 2026 · 7:59

Good Morning, Israel · Episode 23

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1. Gantz Quits Knesset Race, Shifting Political Landscape
2. US Defense Secretary Meets Netanyahu Unannounced Ahead of Israeli Elections
3. Behind Trump's Netanyahu Endorsement: Opposition Efforts and Internal US Debate
4. Ex-Doctor Jailed for ISIS Membership After Downloading Bomb Manuals
5. Court Rules Insufficient Evidence for Murder Charges Against Two Women in Binyahu Razi Case
6. Gas Leak at Intel Plant in Kiryat Gat Follows Deadly Explosion

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Maya

Benny Gantz is out of the race, with the election just a week away.

Daniel

And his bloc, which led the polls in early October, has shrunk to a single party that isn't even his.

Maya

This is Good Morning, Israel from baba News. It's Tuesday, October twentieth. I'm Maya.

Daniel

And I'm Daniel.

Maya

Daniel, three weeks ago Gantz looked like a contender. Now he's not even on the ballot. Walk us through it.

Daniel

Gantz leads the National Unity party. He's a former I D F Chief of Staff and a familiar figure in Israeli politics. On Monday, October nineteenth, he announced he was withdrawing his party from the Knesset elections.

Maya

The Knesset being Israel's parliament.

Daniel

Right. And the striking part is how fast his support collapsed. In early October, polls gave his party nearly forty mandates.

Maya

Mandates meaning seats, out of a hundred and twenty.

Daniel

Exactly. Forty seats is prime minister territory. Since then the numbers have dropped sharply.

Maya

So why quit rather than limp to the finish?

Daniel

He pointed to the falling polls and to concerns inside the party. And he says he quit even though he'd been confident at first, and even though professional advisors told him to keep going.

Maya

So his own experts said stay in, and he walked anyway.

Daniel

That's how he described it. Which tells you how bad the internal picture must have looked to him.

Maya

What's left of this unity bloc?

Daniel

Only Yoaz Hendel's party. It was part of the same alliance, and now it's the one piece still running.

Maya

And Gantz himself? Is he done with politics?

Daniel

Not by his telling. He says he'll keep pushing for a unity government, just from outside the campaign.

Maya

A unity government, with nobody on the ballot. That's a creative strategy.

Daniel

It's an unusual one. But think about what he's betting on. If neither big camp can form a coalition on its own, someone has to broker a broad government. He wants to be that someone.

Maya

Who gains from his exit?

Daniel

That's the real question for the next week. His voters don't vanish. They go to other parties in the center, or to the opposition generally, or they stay home. Where they land could shape the coalition math on election night.

Maya

Staying with the campaign, and a visitor nobody announced.

Daniel

U S Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel on Monday. According to Axios, the American news site, citing two sources, the visit wasn't made public in advance.

Maya

Eight days before the vote.

Daniel

Eight days before the vote. And it comes amid discussions about resuming operations against Iran.

Maya

Resuming. So this picks up something that had paused.

Daniel

Right. Iran is the regime that has armed and funded terrorist organizations around Israel's borders. Any talk of renewed operations against it is about as serious as Israeli security policy gets.

Maya

And the Pentagon chief flying in quietly is its own message.

Daniel

It is. Combine it with what we told you yesterday about President Trump endorsing Netanyahu, and the picture voters see is close coordination with Washington right before they go to the polls.

Maya

A security story now, from the south of the country. A former doctor is going to prison for joining ISIS.

Daniel

His name is Muhammad Azzam. He used to work at Soroka Medical Center, the big hospital in Beersheba, in the Negev desert. He was sentenced to twenty-seven months in prison for membership in ISIS.

Maya

What did he actually do?

Daniel

He downloaded manuals on explosives and poisons. And the court found that wasn't just ideological curiosity. It said his actions pointed to preparation for practical use.

Maya

A doctor, with poison manuals. That's chilling.

Daniel

It is. His defense argued his membership was passive. The court didn't accept that. It convicted him based on his pledge of allegiance and the materials he'd collected.

Maya

Anything beyond the prison term?

Daniel

A fine and a suspended sentence. And his medical license is under review.

Maya

One would hope that review is short.

Daniel

Most people would agree.

Maya

From one courtroom to another. The Jerusalem District Court has made a ruling in the Binyahu Razi murder case.

Daniel

The court found there isn't enough evidence to charge two women, Agam Tzarfi and Shilat Huta, with murder.

Maya

So they walk?

Daniel

Not exactly. The court did find evidence for aiding and abetting murder. And it ordered a review of whether they can be released.

Maya

How has the family taken it?

Daniel

Very badly. Razi's family called the decision absurd and irresponsible.

Maya

And the other side?

Daniel

The women's lawyers welcomed it. They say their clients weren't involved in the plot to kill him.

Maya

So the next step is that release review.

Daniel

Right, and that's where we'll see whether the two women stay in custody.

Maya

Now to Kiryat Gat, and a second scare at the Intel plant there.

Daniel

Kiryat Gat is a city in southern Israel, home to one of Intel's major chip factories. On Monday there was a leak of nitrogen trifluoride gas inside the plant.

Maya

This is the same plant where workers were killed last week.

Daniel

Yes. On October fourteenth, an explosion there killed two workers, Yakir Kosashvili and Ilya Chechulin.

Maya

So what happened this time?

Daniel

The leak was found while gas cylinders were being removed. It was contained inside the plant.

Maya

Is it connected to the explosion?

Daniel

That's what investigators want to know. They're looking at a possible link between the leak and their ongoing probe into the explosion.

Maya

A quick round now, starting with your shopping cart.

Daniel

AliExpress, the Chinese online marketplace, has launched a free club called Elite for Israeli shoppers. You qualify if you spend more than eight hundred shekels a year.

Maya

And what do I get for my loyalty?

Daniel

Five percent off selected items, and easier returns.

Maya

Five percent. Be still, my heart.

Daniel

It's about competition. AliExpress is fighting Shein and Temu, and new E U customs rules are pushing Chinese online retailers to look for other markets. Israel is one of them.

Maya

And the parcels are coming.

Daniel

Israel Post expects a record twenty million parcels in November alone.

Maya

Tech now, another Israeli startup gets bought.

Daniel

Boomi, a data company, has acquired Elementary Data for about forty-three million dollars. Elementary watches how data moves through a company, spots anomalies, and traces where data came from.

Maya

Which matters more now that everyone's feeding data into A I.

Daniel

Exactly. It was founded in twenty twenty-one by veterans of Unit eighty-two hundred, the I D F's elite intelligence technology unit. It raised eight point five million dollars and served more than fifteen hundred teams.

Maya

And the staff?

Daniel

All seventeen employees join Boomi, which says it plans to expand in Israel.

Maya

Last one. The head of the Tax Authority wants your two hundred shekel notes.

Daniel

Tax Authority Director Shai Aharonovich proposed abolishing the two hundred shekel note, and eventually cash altogether. He says it could raise tax collection by twenty to thirty billion shekels a year.

Maya

Because big notes are popular with people who'd rather not pay tax.

Daniel

That's the logic. The Bank of Israel, the central bank, rejected it. It says only the Governor can cancel notes, and that no professional basis has been presented.

Maya

And the bigger picture?

Daniel

The bank notes that no country has fully abolished cash, and that many people still rely on it. Two hundred shekel notes make up about seventy-five percent of the hundred and thirty billion shekels in circulation. They're staying.

Maya

So for now, your wallet is safe.

Daniel

For now.

Maya

The thing to watch today and tomorrow is where Benny Gantz's voters go, and whether the polls show a new shape to the race with a week left.

Daniel

Follow Good Morning, Israel so tomorrow's episode is waiting for you.

Maya

See you tomorrow morning.