Saar, Longtime Netanyahu Ally, Emerges as his Top Challenger

In this August 26, 2012 file photo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, speaks to then Israeli Education Minister Gideon Saar as they arrive to the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. (AP)
In this August 26, 2012 file photo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, speaks to then Israeli Education Minister Gideon Saar as they arrive to the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. (AP)
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Saar, Longtime Netanyahu Ally, Emerges as his Top Challenger

In this August 26, 2012 file photo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, speaks to then Israeli Education Minister Gideon Saar as they arrive to the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. (AP)
In this August 26, 2012 file photo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, speaks to then Israeli Education Minister Gideon Saar as they arrive to the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. (AP)

For years, Gideon Saar was one of Israeli Prime Minister’s Benjamin Netanyahu’s most loyal and vocal supporters, serving as Cabinet secretary and government minister.

Now, the telegenic Saar, armed with extraordinary political savvy and a searing grudge against his former boss, could prove to be Netanyahu’s greatest challenge.

After breaking away from the Likud Party to form his own faction, Saar is running against Netanyahu in March elections and has emerged as the long-serving leader's top rival.

The challenge caps the stunning decline of the Saar-Netanyahu relationship, pitting a cunning political mind against his former mentor in a deeply personal battle drenched in past grievances.

A secular resident of culturally liberal Tel Aviv with a celebrity news anchor wife, Saar, 54, is a hardline nationalist long seen as an heir to the Likud Party leadership. After unsuccessfully challenging Netanyahu in a leadership race and then being denied a government position as retribution, Saar last month broke out on his own. He said his aim was to topple Netanyahu for turning the Likud into a tool for personal survival at a time when he is on trial on corruption charges.

Saar’s chances of becoming prime minister in the next elections are far from certain and polling forecasts his New Hope party coming in second place after Likud. But his entry into the race reconfigures the playing field and could complicate Netanyahu’s task of forming a coalition government, perhaps sidelining the Israeli leader after more than a decade at the helm.

“If there’s someone who can beat Netanyahu it is Gideon Saar," said Sharren Haskel, a former Likud lawmaker who quit the party to join Saar. "He is the only one who can stand up against Netanyahu because of his ideology, his experience and his capabilities.”

Haskel, together with other Saar allies in Likud, concocted a plan to thwart a bill that might avert elections. In a late-night maneuver, they defied the party by skipping the vote or voting against the bill, catching Netanyahu off guard and prompting the government's collapse. They even coordinated the move with members of opposing parties who hid in the Knesset parking lot until moments before the vote, attesting to Saar's political savvy, the lengths he is prepared to go to bring down Netanyahu and his potential ability to reach across the aisle.

While Saar has brought hope to some that Netanyahu’s rule is on the rocks, a victory would probably not mean significant changes in policies, particularly toward the Palestinians. Saar, like Netanyahu, is a hardline nationalist opposed to Palestinian independence.

These right-wing credentials appear to be playing to his favor. Contrary to other recent Netanyahu challengers who have tried to appeal to a broader, centrist swath of Israelis, Saar is siphoning away both the votes of disillusioned Netanyahu supporters as well as Likud lawmakers. At least four defectors have joined him, including former Netanyahu confidant Zeev Elkin.

“He is attacking from the right,” said Hebrew University political scientist Reuven Hazan. “It is a different game entirely.”

Three previous elections since 2019 ended in deadlock between Netanyahu and his then-challenger, former military chief Benny Gantz. The most recent vote in March culminated in a power-sharing agreement that crumbled last month after months of dysfunction.

Saar entered politics in 1999, serving as Cabinet secretary in the first Netanyahu government. He became a Likud legislator in 2002 and remained loyal to the party and Netanyahu, even when the party plummeted in 2006 elections.

Since Netanyahu’s return to the premiership in 2009, Saar has held the powerful posts of education and interior minister, pushing hardline policies against illegal migrants alongside a more socially liberal doctrine that extended public education to preschoolers. He repeatedly won the top spot in Likud party primaries, just beneath Netanyahu.

After marrying popular Israeli news anchor Geula Even-Saar — a second marriage for both of them — he took a five-year hiatus from public life. Saar returned to politics in 2019, but was promptly confined to the backbenches after challenging Netanyahu in a Likud primary.

Now, freed from Netanyahu's grasp on Likud, Saar may have a fighting chance.

In announcing his departure, Saar said he could no longer serve under Netanyahu.

“A change in the country’s leadership is needed,” Saar said. “Today, Israel needs unity and stability. Netanyahu can’t, and won’t be able to, provide either.”

Since he bolted, the Likud has tried to paint Saar as a leftist in disguise, but his record indicates otherwise.

Saar has been a longtime opponent of the two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, the longstanding international consensus for ending the conflict.

“He is more right-wing than Bibi by far,” said political analyst Avraham Diskin, who said he has known Saar for years. He was referring to Netanyahu by his nickname. “But he is a pragmatic person, not a fanatic. He is cautious and level-headed,” he said, indicating that he may rein himself in under pressure from the international community, reported The Associated Press.

Saar supports building up West Bank settlements and annexing parts of the West Bank, while granting some autonomy to the Palestinians living in the territory. That would fall far short of their demands for an independent state that includes all of the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza. Israel captured the three areas in 1967, though it withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

“There is no two-state solution; there is at most a two-state slogan,” Saar told the Times of Israel in 2018. “The establishment of a Palestinian state a few miles away from Ben-Gurion Airport and Israel’s major population centers would create a security and demographic danger to Israel.”

While some Israelis who don't espouse those views are still eager to support Saar as a replacement to Netanyahu, others say his rise only elevates another hardline nationalist.

“The next prime minister of Israel will be a full-blown total man of the right, uncompromising and pitiless,” columnist Gideon Levy wrote in the liberal Haaretz daily. “The choice is between two ultra-nationalists, Netanyahu or Saar: Bibi or Gidi. There probably will be no other viable candidate. This is a dismal reality, but a very sobering one.”



What to Know About the Flash Floods in Texas That Killed over 100 People

 Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
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What to Know About the Flash Floods in Texas That Killed over 100 People

 Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)

Flash floods in Texas killed at least 100 people over the Fourth of July holiday weekend and left others still missing, including girls attending a summer camp. The devastation along the Guadalupe River, outside of San Antonio, has drawn a massive search effort as officials face questions over their preparedness and the speed of their initial actions.

Here's what to know about the deadly flooding, the colossal weather system that drove it in and around Kerr County, Texas, and ongoing efforts to identify victims.

Massive rain hit at just the wrong time, in a flood-prone place

The floods grew to their worst at the midpoint of a long holiday weekend when many people were asleep.

The Texas Hill Country in the central part of the state is naturally prone to flash flooding due to the dry dirt-packed areas where the soil lets rain skid along the surface of the landscape instead of soaking it up. Friday's flash floods started with a particularly bad storm that dropped most of its 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain in the dark early morning hours.

After a flood watch notice midday Thursday, the National Weather Service office issued an urgent warning around 4 a.m. that raised the potential of catastrophic damage and a severe threat to human life. By at least 5:20 a.m., some in the Kerrville City area say water levels were getting alarmingly high. The massive rain flowing down hills sent rushing water into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet (8 meters) in just 45 minutes.

Death toll is expected to rise and the number of missing is uncertain

In Kerr County, home to youth camps in the Texas Hill Country, searchers have found the bodies of 75 people, including 27 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha said Monday morning. Fatalities in nearby counties brought the total number of deaths to 94 as of Monday afternoon.

Ten girls and a counselor were still unaccounted for at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the river.

For past campers, the tragedy turned happy memories into grief.

Beyond the Camp Mystic campers unaccounted for, the number of missing from other nearby campgrounds and across the region had not been released.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday had said that there were 41 people confirmed to be unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.

Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said during a Monday news conference he couldn't give an estimate of the number of people still missing, only saying “it is a lot.”

Officials face scrutiny over flash flood warnings

Survivors have described the floods as a “pitch black wall of death” and said they received no emergency warnings.

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, who lives along the Guadalupe River, said Saturday that “nobody saw this coming.” Officials have referred to it as a “100-year-flood,” meaning that the water levels were highly unlikely based on the historical record.

And records behind those statistics don’t always account for human-caused climate change. Though it’s hard to connect specific storms to a warming planet so soon after they occur, meteorologists say that a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture and allow severe storms to dump even more rain.

Additionally, officials have come under scrutiny about why residents and youth summer camps along the river were not alerted sooner than 4 a.m. or told to evacuate.

Rice said Monday that he did not immediately know if there had been any communication between law enforcement and the summer camps between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Friday. But Rice said various factors, including spotty cell service in some of the more isolated areas of Kerr County and cell towers that might have gone out of service during the weather, could have hindered communication.

Rice said officials want to finish the search and rescue and then review possible issues with cell towers, radios and emergency alerts.

Officials noted that the public can grow weary from too many flooding alerts or forecasts that turn out to be minor.

Kerr county officials said they had presented a proposal for a more robust flood warning system, similar to a tornado warning system, but that members of the public reeled at the cost.

Monumental clearing and rebuilding effort

The flash floods have erased campgrounds and torn homes from their foundations.

"It’s going to be a long time before we’re ever able to clean it up, much less rebuild it," Kelly said Saturday after surveying the destruction from a helicopter.

Other massive flooding events have driven residents and business owners to give up, including in areas struck last year by Hurricane Helene.

President Donald Trump said he would likely visit the flood zone on Friday.

AP photographers have captured the scale of the destruction, and one of Texas' largest rescue and recovery efforts.