With just three days left till Israel holds its fourth election in two years, politicians are trying to rally every last vote they can muster.
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Virtually all polls show Netanyahu's Likud party, which is projected to win between 28 and 30 Knesset seats, dominating the field.
Beyond Yesh Atid, which is currently on track to win anywhere from 18 to 20 votes, Netanyahu must also worry about former Likud lawmaker Gideon Sa'ar of the New Hope party, and Naftali Bennett, who heads the Yamina faction.
Opposition leader and Yesh Atid party head Yair Lapid on Saturday called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to meet him face-to-face for a televised debate ahead of Tuesday's parliamentary elections.
"The Israeli public deserves a debate," Lapid said in a statement. "It deserves answers. It needs to know what kind of government you're trying to create here. The recording studios are ready, the interviewers are ready, two podiums are waiting."
The former TV presenter accused the prime minister, who has the backing of religious parties, of being on the verge of forming "a racist, extortionist, and misogynist government that will bury Israel's democracy."
He said, "It will no longer be the country of workers, of those who serve the army, of those who pay taxes. They will have a government that hates them, and everything they believe in."
"Come to the debate Bibi. You said I was your opponent. Come to the debate. You asked, 'Where is Lapid?' Here I am."
New Hope's Gideon Sa'ar and Yamina's Naftali Bennett also demanded to take part in the event should it materialize.
Soon after the statement surfaced, Netanyahu reportedly accepted the challenge while speaking to journalist Erel Segal at a conference sponsored by right-wing broadcaster Channel 20, Israeli cable television's right-wing heritage channel.
In an interview with Channel 12 News, Netanyahu said Lapid would have to announce that he was running for the role of prime minister if they were to debate. He said Israelis must understand Lapid's intentions and ambitions and that the country was not "a game" for political figures.
Nevertheless, Netanyahu appeared not to have accepted the challenge despite earlier reports that he had been consulting with his allies on the matter.
He touched upon several subjects, including plans to apply sovereignty to parts of Judea and Samaria -- something Netanyahu said he would only do with US approval.
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The Prime Minister, who had been indicted on charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, also said he was against canceling his own trial.
Meanwhile, Merav Michaeli, head of Israel's Labor party, said she would back any candidate capable of ousting the country's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In an interview with Channel 12 News, Michaeli refused to commit to recommending Lapid for the premiership.
She also refused to rule out sitting in a government with the religious-right ultra-Orthodox party, saying Labor would not shun any communities.
Michaeli said that one of her party's top priorities was resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which, she said, was primarily in Jerusalem's best interests, and vowed to do everything possible to make Netanyahu leave the office.
While her election to the role of party leader appears to have bolstered the party's political standing, Labor is still projected to secure at best five or four seats in the upcoming election, assuming it makes it past the electoral threshold.
However, given how narrow the contest between the pro- and anti-Netanyahu blocs appears to be in the upcoming elections, even a low number of mandates could prove vital in the quest for cobbling a coalition with 61 seats in Israel's 120-seat Knesset.
Asked about the possibility Israel would end up holding its fifth election this summer, United Torah Judaism head Moshe Gafni told the news outlet his party would contemplate its next steps were Netanyahu to fail to garner enough support to form a 61-member coalition government.
"Our signing of the Netanyahu loyalty pledge is meaningless. If he doesn't have 61 recommendations, we'll weigh our steps before we go to a fifth election," he said.
"I've been with Netanyahu for many years. I'm going with him because the traditional public is in the Likud. If the traditional public was somewhere else, I would also go somewhere else. I am committed to this public, just like the public is committed to me."
According to an Israel Hayom-i24News poll published Friday, if the election were held today, the Likud would win 29 seats, followed by Yesh Atid with 18 seats. While Netanyahu is predicted to have a more stable bloc, his narrow lead over Lapid indicates there is virtually no possibility either Bennett or Sa'ar will be tapped to form the next government.
The poll projected 29 seats for Likud, 18 for Yesh Atid, and 10 seats each for Yamina, New Hope, and the Joint Arab List.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
