Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and opposition leader Yair Lapid, who himself briefly led the government in 2022, will run on a joint slate at the next legislative elections in October, the two announced on Sunday. The new party — named "Beyahad" ("together") — will be led by Bennett, who comes from the right, and supported by Lapid from the centre. According to polls, Bennett is the candidate best placed to defeat Benjamin Netanyahu.

Bennett pledged that if elected he would set up a national commission of inquiry into the failures leading to the 7 October 2023 massacre — a step the current government has refused. "Bennett is a man of the right, but an honest right, and there is trust between us," Lapid said, defending a coalition that runs from centre to right but is unified against Netanyahu. The two men previously formed a broad national-unity government together in June 2021, which was replaced at the end of 2022 by the current coalition.

Biographically, Bennett, 54, is a former special-forces officer who became a high-tech entrepreneur, selling his start-up in 2005 for $145M (€110M). Lapid, 62, is the son of author Shoulamit Lapid and the late journalist and minister Tommy Lapid, a Holocaust survivor. A former star television journalist, he founded Yesh Atid ("There is a Future") in 2012, which quickly grew into the country's second-largest party. Source: Le Monde with AFP, 26 April 2026.