Former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid announced Wednesday that former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot is set to join the new political alliance he formed with former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett under the name “Behad.”

Speaking at the Eli Hurvitz Conference on Economy and Society in Jerusalem, Lapid said Eizenkot’s official joining will be announced within two to three weeks at a celebratory press conference. He described the move as a wave of hope and optimism to unify the political camp against the current government.

Lapid also noted that procedures to dissolve the Israeli Knesset have successfully passed the first reading, expecting the final date for early elections to be set in the coming days, marking the official start of election campaigns.

Meanwhile, Naftali Bennett presented a new educational plan at the same conference, aiming to cancel state budgets directed to independent religious (Haredi) educational institutions and transfer them to a unified state-supervised system. He criticized the existence of separate educational networks funded by the government without oversight.