October 7 anniversary puts Netanyahu to the test ahead of Israeli elections

The third anniversary of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack comes as Israel campaigns for parliamentary elections on October 27, 2026. The commemoration has become a focal point of political dispute: the opposition is calling for a state inquiry into the security failures, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects accusations of negligence and assigns some of the responsibility to the security services.

The attack left more than 1,200 people dead, according to one report, and 251 people were taken hostage, according to published tallies. The Israeli offensive in Gaza that followed the attack has caused a high number of Palestinian casualties, and the conflict is not fully resolved. The anniversary thus coincides with unanswered questions about the decisions made before the attack, the cost of the war, and whether the government has met its stated objectives.

The inquiry into security failures at the center of the campaign

The opposition has made a state commission of inquiry one of its main proposals. Opposition parties argue that the actions of both the government and the armed forces and intelligence services must be examined. Gadi Eisenkot, one of Netanyahu’s leading rivals, has put that demand at the center of his campaign.

The proposal has support in the polls cited by the Israeli press. A survey by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) indicates that 75% of respondents support an inquiry, including 52% of those who vote for the governing coalition’s parties. Separately, the Israel Democracy Institute found that 68% of Jewish Israelis consider October 7 a central factor in their voting decision. These are survey results, not a prediction of the vote or an election result.

Netanyahu has maintained that the army and intelligence services misread the threat signals and did not alert him in time. Meanwhile, reports by Haaretz and other media outlets have suggested that the prime minister received warnings before the attack and did not act to strengthen security. Those reports fuel his critics’ accusations, but are not in themselves equivalent to a finding by an official inquiry.

A contested election and an unresolved assessment of the war

Polls described in news coverage point to a close race and show no clear majority for either bloc. Some put Yashar, Eisenkot’s party, ahead, although polls can change and do not determine the outcome. For Netanyahu, the vote is a test of his leadership after nearly two decades in different periods at the helm of the country, and of his image as a guarantor of security.

The state of the war also weighs on the campaign. An Al-Monitor analysis, citing Israeli security sources, says intelligence assessments estimate that Hamas retains around 30,000 armed fighters, a figure close to what it had before the attack. This assessment casts doubt on the government’s promise of a “total victory,” but is not by itself a complete account of the group’s military capabilities or territorial control.

The anniversary therefore brings together two related but distinct debates: who should be held accountable for the failures that allowed the attack, and the extent to which the subsequent strategy has achieved its objectives. The vote will measure political support for Netanyahu and his rivals; it will not, by itself, resolve questions of responsibility or the future of the conflict in Gaza.