Zein Khalil and Rania Abushamala<\/p>\n
25 October 2026\u2022Update: 25 October 2026<\/p>\n
Two Israeli opposition leaders accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday of spreading \u201cterror\u201d and \u201cpanic\u201d among Israelis ahead of the country\u2019s parliamentary election.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu posted an artificial intelligence-generated image early Sunday depicting a nuclear explosion in Tel Aviv, accompanied by a warning about the threat of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and a call to continue confronting Tehran during the remainder of US President Donald Trump\u2019s term.<\/p>\n
Gadi Eisenkot, a former Israeli army chief and leader of the Yashar party, accused Netanyahu of hysteria and resorting to the same tactics he used in previous election campaigns: \u201clies and spreading fear.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis time, you are threatening Israeli citizens with total destruction, after failing to achieve the goals of the war in Iran,\u201d Eisenkot wrote on the US social media platform X.<\/p>\n
He added that Netanyahu had shifted from promising \u201cabsolute victory\u201d to the slogan \u201cWe will not surrender.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is the whole story,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats party, also criticized Netanyahu in a post on X.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe prime minister of Israel posted a picture of an atomic bomb over Tel Aviv,\u201d Golan wrote.<\/p>\n
He called for the Israeli premier to be barred from social media, saying Netanyahu and those around him had \u201clost their minds\u201d as pressure mounted.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Tuesday, we will replace those spreading panic and restore security and rationality to Israel,\u201d Golan added.<\/p>\n
The exchanges came two days before Israel\u2019s parliamentary election, scheduled for Oct. 27, amid a tight competition between Netanyahu\u2019s political camp and opposition parties seeking to end his rule.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu has focused much of his recent campaign on security threats, particularly Iran\u2019s nuclear program, while opposition figures have accused him of exploiting those concerns for political gains.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Eisenkot said Netanyahu\u2019s claim that he had destroyed Iranian nuclear bombs and saved Israel was \u201can outright lie,\u201d adding that \u201cIran has never possessed nuclear bombs.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an interview with Israel\u2019s public broadcaster KAN, Eisenkot also said he did not see an immediate and direct threat that would justify launching a military attack on Iran ahead of the election.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu has led a far-right government since late 2022, widely described as the most right-wing in Israel\u2019s history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zein Khalil and Rania Abushamala 25 October 2026\u2022Update: 25 October 2026 Two Israeli opposition leaders accused Prime Minister…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43,180804],"class_list":["post-656975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-sitekeywords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}