A caretaker Netanyahu keeps the authority to order a strike on Iran, experts tell Reuters

Reuters' Lili Bayer reported from Jerusalem on Wednesday that Netanyahu is expected to face more constraints as caretaker prime minister after Tuesday’s vote, but that experts say his government could still retain significant powers, including on waging war against Iran. The piece was syndicated by Al-Monitor, ThePrint and The New Arab. The Times of Israel’s own version is blunter in the headline — “Caretaker role will limit Netanyahu though he’ll retain war powers, as possible Iran attack looms” — and reports the Likud defence minister, not named in the retrieved text and therefore not named here, attacking Eisenkot’s warning that the prime minister could exploit security issues for his own ends as “undemocratic,” and describing the IDF as a “full partner” that “will carry out any decision necessary.” Eisenkot had said on 13 October that he was unaware of any “critical” development justifying an immediate US-Israeli strike, and that Netanyahu is unfit to lead another Iran operation.

The surrounding picture is thinner than the headlines suggest, and should be handled accordingly. Trump said on 13 October that his administration would “make a decision on Iran very soon.” The Council on Foreign Relations' conflict tracker, updated 23 October, carries a line reading “Trump Reportedly Blocked Israeli Plan for Renewed Iran Strikes,” and records the IRGC claiming to have struck four tankers conducting oil transfers in the Gulf, with three more vessels hit by mines, citing AP. A Times of Israel liveblog on 26 October was headlined on the Mossad chief reportedly sparring with aides over backing an Iran strike plan pushed by the prime minister — reported speech, single-sourced, and the underlying Hebrew outlet is not visible. The campaign itself dates from the joint US-Israeli strike of 28 February 2026; GlobalSecurity’s tracker logs 27 October as day 242. On Thursday, the Saudi-led coalition said it had destroyed a Houthi ballistic missile fired towards the kingdom — a coalition claim with no independent confirmation.

The Israeli press is treating the caretaker question as a legal one, and it is not only that. A transitional government’s limits are enforced by cabinet colleagues, the attorney general and the courts, none of whom have been tested on an order to strike Iran, and all of whom are weaker against a decision framed as operational necessity than against a decision framed as policy. Eisenkot’s warning and the defence minister’s “undemocratic” retort are the opening of that fight, not a commentary on it. Distrust the circulating hard numbers: a CENTCOM figure of 138 ships diverted reaches readers through a third-party outlet and an aggregator, and GlobalSecurity itself records coalition sorties as “not reported.”

Assessment: The election did not resolve the Iran question; it moved it into a legal grey zone where the prime minister’s authority is at its least accountable. Watch three things: whether the attorney general publicly defines the limits of caretaker war powers, whether Eisenkot’s bloc raises the issue in the Knesset before a government is formed, and whether Washington clarifies the CFR tracker’s ‘reportedly blocked' line. Distrust the circulating hard numbers — the CENTCOM figure of 138 diverted ships reaches readers through a third-party outlet and an aggregator, and GlobalSecurity records coalition sorties as ‘not reported.' The Mossad-dissent item is reported speech without a named originating outlet.