Israelis are voting for the 26th Knesset as final polls show neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc nor Gadi Eisenkot's opposition reaching a 61-seat majority.
Israelis are voting Tuesday for the 26th Knesset, Israel's parliament, in the first national election since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack. Final polls show that neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc nor the opposition led by former army chief Gadi Eisenkot can reach 61 of the chamber's 120 seats. Netanyahu's camp is made up of Likud, the chareidi Shas and United Torah Judaism parties, Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism. Roughly 7.3 million Israelis are eligible to vote, according to the Central Elections Committee, the body responsible for publishing the official results.
The Jerusalem Post reported that Eisenkot's Yashar party has moved ahead of Likud in most recent surveys. The final Channel 12 poll, released Friday, gave Netanyahu's bloc 50 seats and the opposition 56. It put Yashar at 22, Likud at 19 (down from the 32 seats it holds in the outgoing Knesset) and Naftali Bennett's Together at 14. The same poll gave the Arab parties a combined 16 seats. JTA, citing most of the final polls, put the two Arab-majority groupings, the Joint List and Ra'am, at 14 or 15 seats together.
Polling stations opened at 7:00 a.m., and exit polls are scheduled for 10:00 p.m. The committee has set up 12,018 polling stations with around 18,000 ballot boxes, and 450 million ballot papers have been printed.
The 3.25% electoral threshold could tip the balance. Prof. Alex Weinreb of the Taub Center calculates that at 70% turnout, about the level seen in 2022, a party would need 165,635 votes to win seats. The bar rises as turnout climbs, which makes the task harder for smaller parties.
The campaign has focused on the strain on the IDF's manpower after three years of fighting and on demands for a state commission of inquiry into the government's failures surrounding the October 7 attack. The opposition has argued that Netanyahu must be held accountable and should no longer serve as prime minister. Netanyahu has once again presented himself as "Mr Security."
"It's a referendum about Israeli democracy. It's also about Netanyahu's performance and accountability for the people who were in charge on Oct. 7."
That was the view of Udi Sommer, who heads the Barak Leadership Center at Tel Aviv University. Tani Frank of the Shalom Hartman Institute said Netanyahu may regard the rest of the Trump administration "as a final window to secure what he views as long-term strategic gains for Israel, particularly completing the mission in Iran and expanding and consolidating the Abraham Accords."
The last days of the campaign were turbulent. On Sunday, Channel 12 reported that Netanyahu had sought last-minute military action that risked a clash with Iran before the vote, and that military chief Eyal Zamir resisted it. CNN later reported that Trump declined to approve new strikes on Iran. Netanyahu denied both reports.
Ynet laid out five possible outcomes: an Eisenkot-led government, another Netanyahu coalition, a minority government relying on Arab parties, a Netanyahu-Eisenkot unity government, or a return to the polls. If the result is deadlock, Netanyahu would stay on as caretaker prime minister until a new government takes office.
Official results must be published by November 4, and the new Knesset could be sworn in on November 10. President Isaac Herzog will then have seven days from publication to choose a candidate to form a government. That candidate will have 28 days to put a coalition together.
Minister Itamar Ben Gvir voting with his wife
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