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Israelis are about to vote in the country's first general election since the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023. According to the polls, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his Likud Party face their steepest competition yet from Gadi Eisenkot and his relatively new party, Yashar!
Gadi Eisenkot was born in Tiberias to working-class parents from Morocco. If he wins, it would make him Israel's first Mizrahi prime minister, meaning that, like around half the country's population, he has Middle Eastern and North African Jewish heritage rather than a European, or Ashkenazi, background.
Joining the Israel Defense Forces' Golani Brigade for national service in 1978, Eisenkot ascended through the ranks, becoming commander of the brigade in 1997. He went on to become Chief of the General Staff of the IDF in 2015.
After retiring from the military, he won a seat in the Israeli parliament and joined Netanyahu's war cabinet in the immediate aftermath of the 7 October 2023 attacks. The war with Hamas took its toll on his personal life: his son, Gal, was killed in Gaza in December 2023. He subsequently lost two nephews in the conflict.
Eisenkot formed his centrist poltiical party Yashar! - which is Hebrew for ‘straight’, ‘true’ or ‘honest’ - as recently as September 2025. He has vowed to destroy Hamas's military wing and dismantle its leadership within 18 months of taking office should he win. He has also said that he will end the surge in settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Production:
Presenter: Mark Coles
Producers: Tom Gillett and Beth Ashmead
Researcher and Production Coordinator: Maria Ogundele
Technical Producer: Neil Churchill
Editor: Justine Lang

Navanetham 'Navi' Pillay has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2026. The 85 year old South African jurist and former UN Human Rights chief initially thought the news was a joke.

Born in Durban, South Africa, to a Tamil family, her grandparents had come to South Africa as indentured labourers to work in the sugarcane fields. Born under apartheid rule neither of her parents were educated and her mother fought for her daughters to attend school where Navi's teachers saw her potential. The community then raised money enabling her to attend university.
In 1967 she was the first woman to establish a law practice in Natal Province defending apartheid activists and political prisoners. She made international news in 1973 when she secured greater legal rights for the prisoners on Robben island including future president, Nelson Mandela.
Once president, Mandela appointed Pillay the first non white woman judge in the South African High Court. Soon after she was made a judge on the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. She became UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and then in 2021 she chaired a UN Commission which accused Israel of genocide in Gaza.
Israel has said awarding Pillay the Nobel Prize legitimised "anti-Israel hatred" and and both the US and Israel have since issued sanctions on the International Criminal Court. But elsewhere she has received congratulations from across the human rights community. Nobel Committee chair Jorgen Watne Frydnes, said she had been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted.
Production:
Presenter: Becky Milligan
Producers: Tom Gillett, Bethan Ashmead Latham
Production Coordinator: Maria Ogundele
Technical Producer: Neil Churchill
Editor: Justine Lang

This week’s Conservative Party conference saw Kemi Badenoch further cement her position at the helm of her party. But can her increased personal popularity help a party that is still lagging behind Reform UK in the polls?
The daughter of a GP and a professor of physiology, Kemi Badenoch was born in Wimbledon but grew up in Lagos, Nigeria. At the age of 16, she moved to London where she worked various jobs including at McDonalds. She studied at Sussex University and it was an introduction to identity politics there that she credits with confirming her conservatism.
After graduating, she worked as a software engineer, a systems analyst before embarking on a career in finance. In 2015 she became digital director at the Spectator magazine.
In 2005, aged 25, she joined the Conservative Party and in 2015 she became a member of the London Assembly. At the 2017 snap general election she successfully ran to be Conservative MP for Saffron Waldon in Essex.
After landing a number of ministerial roles under Boris Johnson she unexpectedly stood for Party Leader when he stood down as Prime Minister in 2022. She came fourth in that contest but ultimately won the leadership contest after the Labour landslide General Election result of 2024.
This week she promised to scrap inheritance tax on family homes, proposed a new ‘Britannia Shield’ missile defence system and ruled out a pact with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. But can she overcome the odds and return the Conservative Party to power?
Production:
Presenter: Mark Coles
Producers: Tom Gillett, Bethan Ashmead Latham
Production Coordinator: Maria Ogundele, Sabine Schereck
Technical Producer: James Beard
Editor: Justine Lang

Presenter Claudia Winkleman, with her trademark fringe, is the host of The Celebrity Traitors season two. The London-born broadcaster has been a familiar face on television for more than three decades - but who is the woman behind the hair?
The daughter of journalist Eve Pollard, known as ‘The First Lady of Fleet Street’, and book publisher Barry Winkleman, as a child Claudia was taken to the National Gallery on weekends by her father to look at one painting at a time for 40 minutes.
This early exposure to the world of art helped secure her place at Cambridge University to study History of Art, while making a name for herself as the only student with a tanning bed in her bedroom.
The start of her career saw her presenting the BBC’s Holiday programme, along with a host of late-night shows including ‘Liquid News’, ‘God’s Gift’ and even a stint on Good Morning with Anne and Nick as the resident dating guru.
But it was moving to co-present Strictly Come Dancing, along with a primetime Radio 2 hosting slot, that led to her biggest role to date - presenting BBC One’s The Traitors, which cemented her status as a household name.
Now, as the second season kicks off, Stephen Smith looks back at the life and career of the woman with the most avant-garde outfits on television.
Production
Producers: Ben Carter and Keiligh Baker
Sound mix: Neil Churchill
Production co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele
Editor: Justine Lang
Archive:
Elizabeth Day 'How to Fail'
British Museum Bayeux Tapestry trailer

Mark Coles profiles Alice Weidel, the some say, unlikely joint leader and public face of the far right, nationalist AfD - the Alternative for Germany party.
Weidel's a right wing populist and a self confessed fan of Margaret Thatcher. Yet in some respects, particularly when it comes to her private life is seemingly at odds with, almost the antithesis of what her party stands for.
Her supporters don't seem to mind. Weidel and the AfD have notched up a series of big win in local elections this month, including Saxony Anhalt, causing huge headaches for beleaguered German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s, Christian Democratic Union.
With the AfD currently topping opinion polls, many are now wondering out loud if Weidel could become Germany’s first far right leader since the Second World War.
Production team:
Producers: Ben Carter and Bethan Ashmead
Sound mix: James Beard
Production co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele
Editor: Justine Lang