Lapid to host all five change bloc leaders for coordination meeting ahead of elections

Opposition leader Yair Lapid will host a coordination meeting with the leaders of the "change bloc"—Naftali Bennett, Gadi Eisenkot, Avigdor Liberman, and Yair Golan—at his Tel Aviv home on Saturday night. The meeting aims to tighten coordination among the parties ahead of the upcoming elections, despite existing disagreements on strategy, leadership, and potential paths to government formation. Eisenkot and Liberman recently met and issued a joint statement, agreeing to "continue cooperating and carrying out the necessary measures... to achieve victory in the election campaign, out of a supreme commitment to replacing the government of the October 7 massacre." Key issues include whether to adopt a bloc-wide strategy over individual party campaigns and divisions regarding forming a government with non-Zionist parties, particularly Eisenkot's condition that any Arab party must recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization.