Benny Gantz said on Monday that he will not run in Israel's election on 27 October. The Blue and White (Kahol Lavan) leader said he will keep working for unity. Al Jazeera reported the withdrawal. The Times of Israel carried the Monday evening press conference at Kfar Maccabiah in Ramat Gan. This is not the election result and not a government formed.

Polls in recent weeks put him below the 3.25 percent threshold needed for the Knesset. A poll is not a vote. Gantz, 67, a former army chief and defence minister, took on himself the failure to persuade enough people, he said at the conference, according to ToI.

Because he is pulling out so late, the party name stays on the ballot, ToI writes. Votes for Blue and White will be wasted. The withdrawal does not wipe the list from Sunday's papers.

Gantz called for a broad Zionist government without Arab parties and declined to line up with the pro- or anti-Netanyahu blocs. Neither bloc accepted the formula, ToI writes. A call for unity is not a coalition.

Gadi Eisenkot, of Yashar, hailed the decision as responsible. Yair Golan, of the Democrats, spoke of a duty to secure victory for the change bloc. That is the opposition's message, not a seat tally. Netanyahu did not win today through Gantz's announcement.

Gantz sat in government with Netanyahu in 2020-2021 and joined the war cabinet after 7 October 2023, then left in June 2024. ToI ties the decline to those alliances. The election remains on 27 October. Anyone writing that Gantz has won, lost the ballot or formed a cabinet is writing past a withdrawal.

Image: Clema12, the Knesset, 2022, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; the building, not the press conference.

Sources consulted: Benny Gantz drops out of Israels election race - Al Jazeera; Blue and Whites Benny Gantz pulls out of race - The Times of Israel.