Exit polls: Likud wins 27 seats, Eisenkot's Yashar 20

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud is projected to finish as the largest party in the election for the 26th Knesset. Exit polls from i24 give Likud 27 seats, with Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar party in second place on a projected 20.

The figures are projections, not results. Official results are published by the Central Elections Committee. Roughly 7.3 million Israelis were eligible to vote, and a governing majority requires 61 of the Knesset's 120 seats.

This is Israel's first national election since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023.

The Jerusalem Post had reported that Yashar overtook Likud in most recent surveys. The final Channel 12 poll, released Friday, put Yashar at 22 seats and Likud at 19, down from the 32 seats Likud holds in the outgoing Knesset. That poll also gave Naftali Bennett's Together 14 seats and the Arab parties a combined 16, with Netanyahu's bloc at 50 seats and the opposition at 56. Neither camp reached a majority in the final pre-election polls.

Netanyahu's camp is made up of Likud, the chareidi parties Shas and United Torah Judaism, Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism. Eisenkot, a former army chief, leads the opposition.

On Tuesday, as voting was underway, Eisenkot's campaign manager, Ronen Manlis, cautioned supporters against complacency. "We're far from victory," he wrote on X, adding: "Netanyahu and his friends' campaign of lies is succeeding."