Israel’s choice: Netanyahu remaining in power or a Palestinian-backed coalition
in Jerusalem
Hours before the final results from Israel’s elections were in, several things were clear. Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition had lost its mandate, and the opposition had a firm majority.
But most of Israel’s Jewish opposition ruled out governing with Palestinian-led parties, in the course of a racist election campaign in which Netanyahu painted Palestinian citizens as an enemy inside the state.
The self-imposed ban on a broader opposition alliance, if it holds, offers Netanyahu the prospect of turning his defeat into another term in office – or at least a prolonged mandate as caretaker prime minister and perhaps another round of elections.
This confected barrier to unseating Netanyahu became the focus of Israeli media and analysts. “No Clear Government” announced the newspaper Israel Hayom. “Road to Unity Government Has Been Paved”, read an article on Channel 12.
Yair Golan, leader of the centre-left Democrats, attacked that framing. “Netanyahu lost. I know how to count,” he said in a statement calling for a government with Palestinians, who make up about 20% of Israel’s population.
We must no longer accept Netanyahu’s racist division between Jewish votes and Arab votes. We have a majority. We have a responsibility. And we have an opportunity to form a change government in partnership with Arab citizens of Israel.
Other Israelis were even more direct. “If you stop being racist two amazing things will happen to you,” musician Yali Sobol wrote in a Facebook post. “First, you will stop being racist. Second, you will discover you have won.”
While Palestinian-led parties do not describe themselves as Zionist, neither do some of the ultra-Orthodox groups who are a key part of Netanyahu’s current coalition.
A survey taken as polls closed on election day showed that a clear majority of opposition voters supported forming a government with the Palestinian-led Ra’am in order to unseat Netanyahu, political psychology researcher Eran Halperin said.
But opposition leaders were silent on Wednesday, as they apparently tried to balance their desire to unseat Netanyahu with promises against working with Palestinians.
Former general Gadi Eisenkot, who leads the biggest opposition party, has not directly ruled out governing with Palestinians but laid out conditions that made it politically impossible for them to join a coalition.
Palestinians have been clearer about their priorities. “We are ready and prepared to pave the way for the ousting of the Netanyahu government,” Yousef Jabareen, leader of the larger Joint List, said on Wednesday. “The change comes through Jewish-Arab partnership.”
For Palestinian citizens facing surging crime, discrimination and home demolitions inside Israel and watching family and friends endure ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank and a war of annihilation in Gaza, that was viscerally true, and they came out in record numbers.
Israel describes itself as a Jewish and democratic state. If the representatives of Palestinians are now effectively excluded from government because of their race, Netanyahu will have turned that promise into more of a choice – between a Jewish future or a democratic one.
Related: Israel’s choice: Netanyahu remaining in power or a Palestinian-backed coalition
Israel’s Central Elections Committee has announced that the distribution of Knesset seats remains unchanged after 88.62% of the votes cast at polling stations across the country have now been counted.
The pro-Netanyahu bloc remains at 53 seats, while the opposition has 67, split between 48 for the Jewish-led parties and 19 for the Arab-led parties.
Further, the committee estimates that the total number of “double envelope” absentee ballots will be between 430,000 and 480,000. These are cast at special voting sites including military bases, prisons, and hospitals, and by diplomats, and have yet to be tallied.
Counting of those ballots is expected to begin at around 1am local time, and to conclude by Thursday evening, according to a committee spokesperson.
Closing summary
This live blog is now closed – you can read the latest news on the elections here.
You can also read this analysis from our Middle East correspondent, Emma Graham-Harrison, who has outlined the options available to Benjamin Netanyahu in the light of Tuesday’s election results.
Israel’s future hangs in the balance as it has become clear that Benjamin Netanyahu has lost his governing majority. His political fate now depends on whether opposition Jewish parties are prepared to forge a common front with Palestinian parties, whose support surged in Tuesday’s historic elections. Indeed, Gadi Eisenkot and his allies face a clear choice: either make a pact with Arab Israeli parties heading for a record result of 19 seats, or hand Netanyahu a political lifeline in the form of new elections or a unity government.
Yair Golan, the leader of the centre-left Democrats, a junior partner in Eisenkot’s bloc, has told Israeli media that he will meet with three leaders tomorrow for coalition talks. According to the Times of Israel, they will be Eisenkot, the leading opposition candidate and chair of the Yashar party, and Yair Lapid, the number-two in the opposition B’Yachad party. This would mark the official start of coalition talks, and Golan has been the only opposition leader so far backing working with the parties led by Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Israel’s Central Elections Committee said it had received the Likud party’s complaint alleging that Arab parties had compromised election integrity and would examine the claims as part of its routine post-election review. Netanyahu’s party responded to partial election results showing Arab-led parties could play a king-making role in forming a new government by accusing them – without evidence – of “stealing” the election and demanding that the police and Shin Bet security service investigate the allegations.
UN rights chief Volker Turk has said that he hopes the next Israeli government will “change course massively” and respect international law. “The message is: don’t continue the current course of warfare where you think you are above international law, because I think that’s what we have frankly seen in the current environment,” Turk told reporters in New York. He added: “Israel has its obligations under international law, international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and they need to respect them, and I hope that the next government will do precisely that and change course massively.”
Updated
Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem has said that the Iran-backed Lebanese movement is “not concerned” with the results of Israel’s election, vowing to continue its “resistance” against its neighbour no matter who wins.
“We do not concern ourselves with who governs Israel, but let it be perfectly clear that it cannot continue its occupation and must leave our land,” Qassem said in a written statement, quoted by Agence France-Presse.
“The resistance will continue ... and will stand up to the aggression directed against it and against Lebanon, and there is no room to discuss the disarmament [of Hezbollah] as long as the occupation persists and its aggression continues,” he added.
The group, which once dominated political life in Lebanon, has been weakened by two wars against Israel since 2023.
In June, Lebanese and Israeli authorities signed a framework agreement which involves the disarmament of Hezbollah, a gradual Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory, and the deployment of the Lebanese army to the area.
But Israel has continued to carry out sporadic, deadly strikes and demolitions in and around the Lebanese territory it occupies, while Hezbollah has refused to submit to government plans to disarm it.
Updated
Israel’s Central Elections Committee earlier said it had received the Likud party’s complaint alleging that Arab parties had compromised election integrity and would examine the claims as part of its routine post-election review.
The committee said it had launched an oversight operation, as it does after every election, to review all parties’ complaints about election integrity or alleged errors in the results.
As we reported earlier, Likud responded to partial election results showing Arab-led parties set to win a record 19 seats (meaning they could play a king-making role in forming a new government) by accusing them – without evidence – of “stealing” the election and demanding that the police and Shin Bet security service investigate the allegations.
Updated
UN rights chief wants next Israeli government to 'change course massively' and respect international law
UN rights chief Volker Turk has said that he hopes the next Israeli government will “change course massively” and respect international law, as the country’s political future hangs in the balance after hard-fought elections.
“The message is: don’t continue the current course of warfare where you think you are above international law, because I think that’s what we have frankly seen in the current environment,” Turk told reporters in New York.
Israel has its obligations under international law, international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and they need to respect them, and I hope that the next government will do precisely that and change course massively.
Earlier this week, Turk warned that Israel’s military occupation in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, launched after a deadly attack by Palestinian gunmen, raised serious concerns of “ethnic cleansing”.
“Collective punishment is a grave violation of international law,” he said in a statement on Monday.
Ahmad Tibi, the leader of Ta’al, one of the three parties making up the Palestinian-led Joint List grouping, said he will work with Jewish Israeli parties “to pave the way for an alternative government led by Gadi Eisenkot.”
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has lost his mandate but most of the Jewish-Israeli opposition have ruled out sharing power with Palestinian parties, who are forecast to claim up to 19 seats. Without them, there is no opposition majority.
“We have made a clear political decision: we will do everything within our parliamentary and democratic power to end Netanyahu’s rule and facilitate the establishment of a new government,” Tibi told the Guardian in written comments.
That could start as soon as a new Knesset is seated, even without a full coalition agreement he indicated.
“We extend our hand and are ready to cooperate with the opposition, including in replacing the current speaker of the Knesset with an opposition candidate and enabling the formation of an alternative government,” he said.
“The voters have given us a strong mandate, and we intend to use it responsibly and effectively.”
US president Donald Trump said he hadn’t thought about getting involved in efforts to form a Netanyahu-led government.
“I will take a look,” he told Axios.
Trump also said he thought Netanyahu was in “pretty good shape.” He endorsed the Israeli prime minister in the final stretch of his campaign and praised him as a strong partner in the war with Iran.
Israel’s high-turnout vote was brushed aside by some in the rest of the Middle East.
In Tehran, banners with images of slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reminded Iranians of US and Israeli strikes launched in February which kicked off the war.
Just to the right was a poster of late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed on Netanyahu’s orders in Lebanon.
“I genuinely see the possibility of attack,” said 50-year-old Iranian citizen Abdollah Karimi.
Frustration was also palpable in Egypt, the first Arab country to make peace with Israel in 1979.
Outhman Selim, a 62-year-old lawyer, said his hopes that a Netanyahu defeat would steer the country away from the far-right had been dashed.
Netanyahu's Likud accuses Arab parties - without evidence - of having 'stolen' election
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud accused Arab parties of having stolen the country’s election, after partial results showed they could play a kingmaking role in forming a new government.
“The elections in the state of Israel have been stolen by Arab parties who support terrorism and the annihilation of the Jewish state through serious criminal acts of corruption, threats, violence, falsehoods and the use of prohibited software to encourage voters to vote,” the party said in a statement, adding that it was submitting testimonies and evidence to the authorities.
With 85% of votes counted, two Arab-led parties – Ra’am and Joint List – had won 19 seats in the Knesset.
Updated
The mood was joyful overnight at the headquarters of the United Arab List, the lone Arab party to ever join a governing coalition, briefly, in 2021.
So far in the count it has won 12 Knesset seats.
“We are here, we are not on the sidelines,” party leader Mansour Abbas declared. Some Israelis found that an unusual, if not uncomfortable, prospect.
“We are little by little coming to a situation where we have to face reality,” said Hanna Doukhan, a voter in Tel Aviv. “I don’t see a possibility to form a government without the Arabs.”
Others were hopeful. “This would open the door to repairing our society” while preserving Israel as the national home of the Jewish people, said Eti Wissotzky-Cohen in Tel Aviv.
And in Nazareth, one of Israel’s largest Arab cities, Awni Zoabi thanked God for a possible return to rationality in a country where extreme rhetoric has increased . “The Arabic language has become as if it were a crime,” Zoabi told AP.
Israel’s president has voiced hope over avoiding a second election after a hard-fought vote produced no clear winner, leaving prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the opposition scrambling for options and making Israeli Arab parties possible kingmakers.
“We must do everything we can, certainly after yesterday, to avoid another round of elections,” said president Isaac Herzog, who is tasked with determining which candidate to tap to form a government, and who urged parties to keep “an open mind”.
Yousef Jabareen, head of the leftist Arab-majority Joint List, said the Israeli public had voted for new leadership and “anyone who wants to offer a substantive and genuine alternative to Netanyahu’s blood-soaked government will have to talk to us”.
“It’s either the continuation of racism, the continuation of exclusion and the continuation of supremacy, or a genuine Jewish-Arab partnership,” he said.
Hasan al-Masri, who was displaced from his home in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, told AP that he desperately hoped the election would bring change to Gaza.
“We pray to God that these elections bring a positive outcome for us,” he said.
“We have been utterly devastated; nothing remains. They have killed our children, destroyed our homes, and everything we had is gone.”
The future of Gaza was barely an issue in the Israeli election campaign and the only major candidate to talk in favor of the two-state solution was Yair Golan, the head of the small Democrats party.
In the southern Gaza strip, where Israeli airstrikes are still a regular occurrence despite a ceasefire, residents of the city of Khan Younis were following the results of Israel’s election closely, hoping that anyone but prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will form the next government.
“All of their policies towards Gaza are tough, but we choose the lesser of two evils,” resident Ayman Ahmed told AP. Ahmed said that he hoped Netanyahu’s main challenger, Gadi Eisenkot, would prevail, noting that he supports US president Donald Trump’s roadmap for Gaza .
The plan calls for disarming the Hamas militant group and installing a new US-backed government. But it also requires Israel to withdraw forces and allow reconstruction to begin.
Netanyahu agreed to the Trump plan but never carried it out beyond the initial stage of a partial withdrawal and increased aid in exchange for the return of the final hostages, alive and dead, held by Hamas. The plan has been largely frozen for nearly a year.
In the rubble-strewn streets near the city’s Nasser Hospital, Mohammed Abed said that a Netanyahu win would be seen as a victory for his agenda, but that he didn’t expect major changes no matter who is in power.
“An Eisenkot victory will not dramatically change the situation, because their policies are almost similar,” Abed said. “In the end, it will be the same.”
Summary: the day so far
With more than 92% of ballots counted, the story of Israel’s first election since the October 7 attacks has become quite clear.
Netanyahu coalition government has lost its majority but his main opponents, an alliance of Jewish Israeli parties unofficially led by Gadi Eisenkot, have also failed to gain an outright majority.
Meanwhile the Palestinian Israeli parties, also seeking to oust Netanyahu, have received a historically strong vote with 19 seats in the 120-seat Knesset.
That means negotiations are underway for a coalition to be formed, and the key question is whether the Eisenkot-led ‘Change’ bloc will partner with Palestinian Israeli parties or if they will resort to a new election, or even working with Netanyahu.
Main result takeaways:
Netanyahu lost support. His Likud party remains the largest in parliament but has fewer seats, and the vote also dwindled for his far-right, religious extremist allies Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir
The parties opposing Netanyahu received greater support, but are divided into a Jewish coalition of parties and a Palestinian-Israeli bloc.
As such, there’s fevered debate over whether the ‘Change’ bloc (consisting of right-winger Naftali Bennett’s Together party, centre-left Yair Golan’s Democrats and the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party) will strike a deal with the Palestinian Israeli parties
The Joint List, a new ticket of several Arab-majority parties, triumphed with at least 12 seats, while Ra’am, the other Islamic party, won seven.
The Palestinian Israeli vote, which represents around 20% of the population, had long been seen as a decisive factor for who will be able to form government and the high turnout this election was driven by the community suffering increased racism and discrimination under Netanyahu’s government
Netanyahu refuses to work with Palestinian Israeli parties and repeated this pledge at his 3am address the night of the election
This is the most-voted for election in Israel’s political history with many Israelis flying back into the country to cast their vote and nearly 80% of IDF soldiers voting.
Donald Trump said his endorsement had helped Netanyahu perform better than polling estimates
What now?
We can expect absentee ballots to be counted tonight with final results by Thursday
President Isaac Herzong will then direct the political leader he believes is best placed to form government
Netanyahu will remain as caretaker until those negotiations are complete
Updated
All polling station votes counted as 92% of ballots tallied
The electoral committee’s count site has just refreshed its numbers and the Netanyahu bloc has dropped to 53 seats, the Jewish opposition Change bloc now has 48 seats and the Israeli Palestinian opposition parties have 19 seats.
More than 92% of the ballots have been tallied. Israeli news site Ynet says that’s essentially all of the votes cast at polling stations counted for as the remainder come from absentee ballots, which represent about 14% of votes.
So going by the in-country votes, the opposition, in total, have 67 seats.
Sixty one are needed for a majority in the Israeli parliament but there’s doubts over whether the Jewish opposition will enter a deal with Palestinian parties to form a coalition government.
Updated
Analysts have been pointing out what Democrats leader Yair Golan was emphasising earlier: Netanyahu has lost and the Jewish and Palestinian Israeli parties opposing him have won the most support.
Golan, who is a junior partner in the Change bloc, has been pushing for Jewish and Palestinian Israeli co-operation to form a government.
But because of the Jewish/Palestinian Israeli divide, it is a more complicated affair.
Mairav Zonszein, analyst at Crisis Group has written on X:
If Israel wasn’t a Jewish supremacist society [“Zionist] then all the headlines today would be that Netanyahu lost and that a strong Jewish-Arab government in Israel that champions democracy and personal security can place a way forward.
The refusal to partner with Palestinian Arab parties is not just about losing chance to replace Netanyahu government- it also has real implications for Israel’s already flawed democracy, for basic civil rights and will encourage further destruction of liberal institutions.
Updated
There is precedent for a government coalition involving Palestinian-Israeli parties
With Palestinian Israeli parties recording such a strong vote, they could play a decisive role in selecting Israel’s next leader.
However, Jewish Israeli and Palestinian Israeli parties teaming up to form a coalition is seen as a taboo – particularly after Netanyahu ramped up a racist, anti-Arab scare campaign in the wake of the October 7 attacks.
But a political deal is not unprecedented.
The Ra’am leader, Mansour Abbas, in 2021 took his party into a historic coalition government with then right-wing leader Naftali Bennett, now part of the opposition bloc.
Netanyahu had also started coalition negotiations with Abbas in previous years, although this election he’s described the idea as treasonous.
Among the Jewish opposition in the Change bloc, unofficial leader Gadi Eisenkot has said that he would be open to a partnership if the Palestinian Israeli parties recognised Israel as a Jewish state.
However, more right-wing parties in the bloc have refused to work alongside the Palestinians altogether.
Palestinian Israeli politicians have asserted that they would make a deal with a minority government of Jewish Israeli parties, in order to remove Netanyahu from government. The Joint List this morning called for a “genuine Jewish-Arab partnership”.
Updated
Yesterday my colleague Julian Borger was in Nazareth, the largest Palestinian-majority town in Israel.
Palestinian Israelis make up about 20% of the population, and their turnout this year has been critical to the results we’re seeing, where the two main Palestinian ticket options have secured at least 17 seats between them.
The Joint List, an alliance of Palestinian-Israeli parties, has performed particularly well, securing at least 11 seats in parliament.
The general secretary of Hadash, the leading party in the Joint List coalition, had told Julian that although the Jewish opposition bloc had ruled out working with Palestinian parties, he thought their approach might change after the elections.
“He cannot sit down [in coalition] with Netanyahu, and he won’t want to go back to another round of elections, so we think he can be flexible,” said Amjad Shbita.
Manar Hassan, an observer from Ra’am, the other significant Palestinian Israeli party, had also described the turnout as “amazing”.
“It’s never been this strong,” she said, adding that the reasons for the higher level participation were not hard to find.
“We witnessed a catastrophe in Gaza,” Hassan said. “Here we live in fear and anxiety. We need drastic change.”
Updated
Jewish opposition and Netanyahu bloc still short of majority as 84% of ballots counted
The latest numbers have come in, showing a boost to Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar and Naftali Bennett’s Together party, which brings the anti-Netanyahu ‘Change’ bloc to 49 seats.
The Netanyahu bloc hasn’t changed, at 54 seats, still short of the 61 majority needed for the 120-seat Knesset.
The Palestinian parties’ seats have been revised down to 17 seats.
As we’ve been reporting, if the Jewish Israeli parties agree to partner with the Palestinian parties, they will have the numbers to oust Netanyahu. The opposition together would have 66 seats. But most of the Change bloc had dismissed the idea of a Jew-Arab deal in the lead-up to the election.
Here’s the seat breakdown by party, the Netanyahu bloc is bolded, and the Palestinian Israeli parties italicised.
Likud (Netanyahu): 27
Yashar (Eisenkot): 22
Together (Bennett): 12
Joint List: 11
Democrats (Golan): 8
Yisrael Beiteinu: 7
Shas: 7
United Torah Judaism: 7
Otzma Yehudit (Ben-Gvir): 7
Religious Zionism (Smotrich): 6
Ra’am: 6
Updated
Leading Palestinian party ready to help 'oust Netanyahu'
The head of the Joint List, the Palestinian Israeli alliance that has performed tremendously this election, has said his party is ready to help remove Netanyahu from office in a partnership with Jewish Israeli opposition parties.
Joint List could be kingmakers, having received the third-largest amount of support so far, behind Netanyahu’s Likud party and Eisenkot’s Yashar. They are an alliance of smaller Arab-majority parties, who have usurped Mansour Abbas’ Ra’am party in galvanising the Palestinian Israeli vote which represents about 20% of the population.
Many voters in this camp have said that they needed to turn out for this election for a chance to get away from the racist, discriminatory policies perpetrated against them under the current far-right Netanyahu government.
This morning, Joint List chairman Yousef Jabareen called for a genuine Jewish-Arab partnership to replace what he said was Netanyahu’s “government of bloodshed.” He also noted that anyone seeking to form an alternative would need to engage with Joint List.
But most of the Jewish opposition parties in the Change bloc anchored by Eisenkot have so far rejected the idea of working with Palestinian Israeli parties.
Eisenkot has said he’d be open to it but only if the Arab parties recognised Israel as a Jewish state and Hamas as an extremist group – conditions which effectively rule out a deal.
The Democrats have been the only ones expressly open to the idea so far, and party leader Golan this morning argued against the racist exclusion of Palestinian Israelis.
Netanyahu meanwhile, has been running a racist scare campaign all election suggesting that the Palestinian parties are “stealing the vote”. During his 3am speech at party HQ he again said he wouldn’t partner with them, describing the idea as treasonous.
Updated
Eisenkot facing stark choice: Make a deal with Palestinian parties or throw Netanyahu a lifeline
The leader of the centre-left Democrats, Yair Golan, has made a point about Zionism that has not had much scrutiny until now.
The Palestinian parties are not the only non-Zionist grouping in the new Knesset. Benjamin Netanyahu’s political bloc relies on Jewish ultra-orthodox, haredim, parties that represent non-Zionists who insist on exemption from military service.
By making an early (and seemingly premature) declaration of a victory for a “Zionist mobilisation government”, the leader of the Jewish “Change” bloc, Gadi Eisenkot, was ruling out potential coalition partners, the surging Arab parties, while Netanyahu had no intention of renouncing his potential haredi partners.
Writing in Haaretz, the commentator Noa Landau, argued Eisenkot had fallen “into the trap Netanyahu laid for him over the course of the election campaign”.
While projections of the Knesset results have fluctuated significantly over the past hours, the Palestinian Joint List has held firm at 11 projected seats. [As of the 11am figures, it is up to 13 seats.]
It is the projected strength of the rival Ra’am (United Arab List) which has wavered. It no longer seems feasible for the Eisenkot bloc to make a deal exclusively with the Ra’am’s leader, Mansour Abbas, who has shown himself more accomodating towards Zionism, appointing a Zionist Jewish deputy for example.
The choice for Eisenkot will be starker: do a deal with the Joint List, which is far more assertive about Palestinian identity and about the racism that its constituents experience, or throw Netanyahu a political lifeline in the form of new elections or a unity government.
Updated
Palestinian parties gain 19 seats, positioning them as potential kingmakers
With 70% of the vote (4 million ballots) counted at 11am local time, the base numbers for Netanyahu and Eisenkot’s parties largely haven’t changed but the two Palestinian parties have increased their share.
The Netanyahu bloc now has 54 seats, while the opposition seeking to get him out of office consists of the Eisenkot-led Change bloc with 47 seats and the Palestinian parties with 19 seats.
The Knesset has 120 seats- 61 are needed for a majority.
At the bottom of this post is the current seat breakdown by party – I’ve bolded the Netanyahu bloc.
Netanyahu’s Likud party, while losing support since the last election, has still gained the most number of votes – ahead of Eisenkot’s Yashar. However, critically for Netanyahu, his far-right allies in Ben-Gvir and Smotrich’s parties have seen a decline in their support.
Meanwhile the Palestinian Israeli parties, italicised below, have seen a huge gain, particularly for the Joint List, which is an alliance of smaller Arab-majority parties. They have nearly doubled their representation in parliament.
Likud (Netanyahu): 27
Yashar (Eisenkot): 20
Joint List: 13
Together (Bennett): 11
Democrats (Golan): 8
Yisrael Beiteinu: 8
Shas: 7
United Torah Judaism: 7
Otzma Yehudit (Ben-Gvir): 7
Religious Zionism (Smotrich): 6
Ra’am: 6
Updated
Golan warns against racist exclusion of Palestinian parties
As the vote count flows in, Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats, issued a strong statement rejecting attempts to frame results as a tie, and warning against the racist exclusion of Palestinian representatives from a future government.
Golan leads the only centre-left party in the Jewish-Israeli opposition bloc. Many of the parties in that anti-Netanyahu ‘Change’ grouping have explicitly ruled out governing with Palestinian Israeli parties.
The unofficial leader of the bloc, Gadi Eisenkot, has laid out conditions for joining his coalition that effectively bar the Arab parties.
This morning Golan says:
There is one resounding lesson from the reality we face: we have no future here unless we stop being afraid. And unless we put an end to racism. We must no longer accept Netanyahu’s racist division between Jewish votes and Arab votes.
The vote of an Israeli citizen casting a ballot in Tira is worth exactly the same as the vote of an Israeli citizen casting a ballot in Givat Shmuel. Not less. Not approximately the same. Exactly the same.
Anyone who tries to erase the votes of Arab citizens is surrendering to Netanyahu and giving up on Israel.
The largest Palestinian-Israeli alliance, the Joint List, is expected to get significantly more seats in the Knesset than the Democrats. With two thirds of votes counted, the Joint List is on track for 12 seats, and the Democrats for 8.
Golan said the clearest message from voters was that Netanyahu’s coalition has lost its majority, and its mandate to rule.
I know how to count to 120 [the number of seats in parliament]. 65 is more than 55. That is how Israeli democracy works. Period.
We have a majority. We have a responsibility. And we have an opportunity to form a change government in partnership with Arab citizens of Israel—a government that serves all Israeli citizens.
Updated
It’s worth noting the front page headlines in Israeli media today, printed before dawn so slightly out of date on some of the projections.
But the top headlines for each masthead are notable – with most highlighting the rise in the Palestinian-Israeli parties. The fact that there is no clear government formation had been expected; as we’ve reported, no single political party has ever won an outright majority in Israel’s political history so governments have also been coalitions of multiple parties. The papers did indicate a slight lead among the opposition bloc.
Yedioth Ahronoth:
Eisenkot on His Way to the President
Small Parties Fall Beneath the Electoral Threshold
Surge in Arab Sector Vote
Ma’ariv:
Vote of No-Confidence
Exit Polls on All Channels: Pro-Change Bloc: 52; Netanyahu Bloc: 50; Arab Parties: 18
A Masterpiece of Delicate Embroidery
Ha’aretz:
Exit Polls: 70 Seats for Opposition, 18 of Them from Arab Parties
Self-Defensive Democracy
Voter Turnout was 77.7%, Highest Since 1999
Israel Hayom
No Clear Government
Record Number for Arab parties: 18 Seats
Haredi Parties Drop to 12-15 Seats
Updated
We’re expecting a sharper picture of results just after 10am local time, where a majority of votes will be tallied and crucially, key counting from areas supporting Palestinian parties will have come in.
As of 9.16am local time, 65% of the vote had been counted showing the Netanyahu bloc on 56 seats, the Eisenkot-anchored ‘Change’ bloc on 48, and Palestinian Israeli parties with 16.
Updated
Hours after Israel’s polling stations closed, and with more than half of votes counted, several things are clear.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s current coalition has lost its mandate, Palestinian citizens of Israel have secured a key bloc of seats on the back of historic turnout, and the main Jewish-Israeli opposition bloc has no clear path to power without their support.
By 8am Israeli time, partial results put the opposition bloc led by former Israeli military chief Gadi Eisenkot on 49 seats, behind Netanyahu’s coalition at 55 seats. Palestinian-led parties are forecast to secure the remaining 16 seats, but several key towns were yet to report their counts.
A more complete picture is expected by late morning. Exit polls had put Eisenkot in a stronger position, and Israeli political analyst Nadav Eyal said around 6am local time that the pollsters were standing behind their samples.
They haven’t corrected further, and apparently validated their exit polls against the true results at the polling stations. In their view, these will be the final results.”
He noted that samples in Israel have historically been very accurate in forecasting the size of potential coalition blocs, but also that Likud’s strength is often underestimated.
Exit polls also do not capture absentee ballots, although these are fairly restricted under Israel’s voting system. Eligible groups include diplomats, serving soldiers and people medically unable to reach polling stations.
Summary
It’s just after 9am in Tel Aviv where Israelis are grappling with the results of yesterday’s elections, with no clear victor and uncertainty guaranteed at this point.
With 50% of the vote counted, Israeli media report that Netanyahu’s bloc is ahead, with projections he could take 55 seats under the current vote share. The projections put Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition bloc on 49 seats and the Palestinian parties on 16 seats. Sixty-one seats are needed to form a majority to govern in the Knesset, and the final seat projection will probably be updated as more votes are counted.
Exit polls published by Israel’s major TV networks show Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing bloc tied with the opposition grouping led by Gadi Eisenkot on 51 seats each. Earlier exit polls had Eisenkot winning most seats in the Knesset by a slight margin. Israeli exit polls are often revised after publication and are notoriously imprecise, with the final count often swinging by several seats.
Voter turnout surged to the highest level in more than two decades, underscoring the stakes of an election that has been labelled the most important in the country’s history. More than 77% of eligible voters cast a ballot, according to Israel’s central elections committee, about 7 percentage points higher than in 2022.
The Palestinian parties are projected to dramatically increase their representation in the Knesset, with exit polls showing they could win as many as 18 seats, up from 10. Experts have said that if Eisenkot falls short of a majority, as the exit polls suggest, he would be obliged to sit down to talk to the Palestinian groupings, the Joint List and Ra’am, to try to form a government – which could take weeks.
Netanyahu took the stage at a post-election rally in Jerusalem just after 3am, telling his supporters official results will show that “Likud is the largest party in Israel”. He told his supporters that the country must “establish a strong, right-wing national government” – adding that a government that relies on the support of Palestinian parties must not be formed.
Eisenkot told cheering supporters in Tel Aviv that the “Israeli public has voted against Netanyahu’s service as Israel’s prime minister … a worthy leader would have accepted the people’s non-confidence and announced today his retirement from politics.” In his speech, he also warned Netanyahu not to “use Israel’s security” for political ends, playing on fears that the prime minister could use this period of uncertainty to launch a new attack on Iran.
The exit polls were released after a last-ditch effort by Netanyahu and several other parties to keep polling stations open beyond their 10pm deadline was rejected by the Central Elections Committee. The prime minister suggested publicly that efforts were being made by the “left and Arabs” to steal the election, a claim rejected by the committee, which said it had seen no evidence of systematic tampering.
Updated
Turnout among Israeli army personnel was 79.9%, an increase of 6.2% from the 2022 elections, according to the IDF.
In its statement, the IDF said that 809 polling stations were deployed throughout the country’s bases and in combat zones.
Under Israeli electoral law each voter is assigned to a specific polling station and can only vote at that station. However in exceptional circumstances, some voters are allowed to cast their ballot at special polling stations they are not registered at; among those afforded this exception are IDF personnel.
Ballot boxes from these special polling stations are transported directly to the Knesset where they undergo a series of checks before they are counted.
One apparent loser from Tuesday’s election was far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was expected to better his party’s result of six seats from the 2022 elections.
But instead there was stunned silence at the watch party for Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) in central Israel as results from the exit polls flashed across the screen, with most channels suggesting the party would remain on just six seats.
Speaking earlier in the evening, Ben-Gvir attempted to revive his supporters spirits by reminding them of all he had achieved in the past four years to further their agenda, including passing a law approving the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of murdering Israelis and worsening conditions for Palestinian prisoners.
He also denounced other members of Netanyahu’s coalition who had suggested a unity government with his main rival, Gadi Eisenkot, which the audience booed loudly.
This is precisely the scenario we warned against – it is a terrible mistake.”
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Analysis: Rise of Palestinian parties in Knesset will redraw Israel’s political landscape
The big gains made by Palestinian parties in Israel’s general election pose an urgent and fundamental challenge to the country’s mainstream opposition: either cooperate with Arab Israelis or hand Benjamin Netanyahu a roadmap to political survival.
In the wake of Tuesday’s exit polls, the leader of the opposition bloc, Gadi Eisenkot, declared them a victory for “Israel’s Zionist national majority” but the real outcome looks as if it will be far more complex than that.
The greatest change between the new Knesset and the old will be the dramatically increased representation of Palestinian parties, currently projected to win 17 to 18 seats, up from 10. That redraws the battle lines on Israel’s political landscape. Arab Israelis will not so easily be sidelined and ignored.
Eisenkot could argue he has a chance of negotiating his way to a Knesset majority. To do so, however, he and his partners in the “change” bloc would be obliged to sit down to talk with the Palestinian groupings, the Joint List and Ra’am (an acronym for the United Arab List).
They would probably find Ra’am and its leader, Mansour Abbas, easier to talk to. Abbas has already participated in a right-leaning government of Naftali Bennett, now a junior partner in the Eisenkot bloc. Abbas has shown willingness to make political compromises and stated emphatically on Tuesday that his priority is to “bring down Benjamin Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben Gvir in this election”.
However, most estimates based on the exit polls show Ra’am as the smaller of the two Palestinian groupings, with seven projected seats in the new Knesset and it is not clear that would be enough, even if a pact was made with the consent of the other members of Eisenkot’s bloc, to produce a majority government.
Negotiations with the Joint List, with 10 or more projected seats, would be tougher. Eisenkot has laid down four conditions: recognise Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, accept the values expressed in Israel’s declaration of independence, accept conscription for Palestinians Israeli citizens, who are currently exempt, and denounce Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
Speaking on Tuesday as the votes were being counted, Amjad Shbita, the general secretary of Hadash, the socialist party that is the biggest faction in the Joint List, said Eisenkot would be in no position to impose terms for coalition talks.
Related: Rise of Palestinian parties in Knesset will redraw Israel’s political landscape
With 50% of the vote counted, Israeli media report that Netanyahu’s bloc is ahead, with projections he could take 56 seats under the current vote share.
The projections put Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition bloc on 49 seats and the Palestinian parties on 15 seats.
Sixty-one seats are needed to form a majority to govern in the Knesset, and the final seat projection will probably be updated as more votes are counted.
Exits polls earlier in the evening had both Netanyahu’s and Eisenkot’s bloc tied on about 51 seats.
What happens now?
The lead that exit polls gave to the opposition bloc early in the night has disappeared, with Netanyahu’s grouping now neck and neck with Gadi Eisenkot.
Israeli television networks gave the two blocs approximately 51 seats each in the 120 member Knesset – well below the 61 needed to govern. Palestinian parties meanwhile saw a surge in support, with exit polls showing them winning 17 or 18 seats between them.
What’s next?
Parties will attempt to reach a majority
No single party has ever reached the requisite 61 seats needed to form a government in the Knesset, so parties must work together to form governing coalitions.
President Isaac Herzog will name a candidate who has the best chance to form a government – not necessarily the party with the most seats – but with the exit polls showing both parties falling short of a majority that process could take weeks.
Coalition building in Israel has always been difficult because mainstream parties usually refuse to collaborate with parties run by Palestinian citizens of Israel. However some have suggested Eisenkot could begin discussions with the Palestinian groupings who have seen a surge in support.
Palestinian grouping Ra’am is seen as a potential kingmaker if Netanyahu fails to secure enough votes to try to form a government. Their leader, Mansour Abbas, participated in a right-leaning government in the past.
However Eisenkot’s camp kept them at arm’s length during the campaign, perceiving their support as a liability. In the past he has said Arab-led parties do not meet Zionist criteria to govern.
For Netanyahu’s bloc, however, there is no obvious place to pick up more seats, save for defections. Addressing his supporters in the early hours of Wednesday morning, he said that a government that relies on the support of Palestinian parties must not be formed.
Coalition negotiations can be arduous and can produce unstable governments. It took Netanyahu 58 days to form his government after the previous election in November 2022.
A minority government could be attempted
If no bloc manages to secure 61 seats, a candidate could attempt to govern without a majority but rather through support on an ad hoc basis from other lawmakers.
In this scenario, lawmakers from the Palestinian parties whose representation in the Knesset is likely to have increase, could play a critical role.
The Joint List – which represents a number of Israeli Arab parties – has said it would be unlikely to join a coalition government outright, but has offered to provide a “safety net” for anyone that ousts Netanyahu from power.
A national unity government?
While appearing fanciful at first glance, Israeli commentators have mused in recent weeks on the possibility of a national unity government in which Netanyahu would jettison his far-right allies as well as ultra-Orthodox parties and team up with Eisenkot, who shares Netanyahu’s views on many security issues.
Amit Segal, the chief political analyst for Channel 12 and journalist seen as close to Netanyahu, suggested that the prime minister’s extortion that the “Zionist majority must come to its senses and unite”, could be interpreted as an olive branch to Eisenkot.
This scenario has a recent precedent. In 2020, Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, like Eisenkot a retired general appealing to the centre, reached a power-sharing agreement, but their partnership fell apart after a year, triggering another election.
A unity government in the present situation would face strong opposition from both sides, particularly the opposition bloc, which has built its campaign around ousting Netanyahu, casting him as unfit to lead.
New elections
If no candidate manages to form a government, Israel will have to return to the polls.
The country held five elections between 2019 and 2022 due to the inability of politicians to forge a lasting coalition.
However if we a new set of polls is on the horizon, they are not likely to happen for weeks at the minimum, with the candidate designated by the president having 28 days to form a coalition, with a possible two week extension.
Coalition talks loom as Israel exit polls suggest Netanyahu and Eisenkot blocs tied
Israel could be in for weeks of political haggling after exit polls and partial official results showed neither Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition nor the opposition bloc led by former general Gadi Eisenkot had won enough seats to form a government.
The polls published by Israel’s major TV networks show Netanyahu’s governing bloc tied with the opposition grouping led by Eisenkot on 51 seats each, short of the 61 seats needed to form a majority coalition government.
Speaking at 3 am local time, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister vowed to assemble a coalition through agreements between his Likud party, far-right factions and Jewish religious parties.
“We must put in place a strong government of the right,” Netanyahu told cheering supporters. “The Jewish and Zionist majority must unite,” he added.
Eisenkot, speaking to his own supporters in Tel Aviv, said earlier in the evening that “people decided in favour of change” and Netanyahu should have “announced today his retirement from politics”.
The election was marked by a record participation by Israeli citizens of Palestinian origin, a discriminated minority that makes up about 20% of the country’s population. Many in the group have sought a stronger political voice after decades of boycotting polls in the Jewish state. Millions of other Palestinians living under Israeli rule in the occupied West Bank and Gaza cannot vote, leading to accusations of apartheid.
Exit polls predicted Palestinian parties could win about 18 seats, up from 10. However, their role in any coalition would be difficult. Netanyahu has said it was “out of the question” to have a government backed by Palestinian parties, while Eisenkot has said Arab-led parties do not meet Zionist criteria to govern.
Related: Coalition talks loom as Israel exit polls suggest Netanyahu and Eisenkot blocs tied
Donald Trump speaks on Israeli election results
Donald Trump has said he is “hearing that [Netanyahu] did very well,” speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. “I actually heard he did pretty well.”
Trump cautioned that it was a “little bit early” and said he has not yet spoken with Netanyahu about the results. Trump endorsed Netanyahu late in the campaign, while Netanyahu stressed his close ties with the White House in his election night speech.
Later on, Trump posted a quote to social media, crediting the support he gave to Benjamin Netanyahu for effecting the outcome of the elections, which remain far from clear.
Attributing the lines to “Irving C. Schwartz”, the US president has posted:
When President Trump endorsed Bibi Netanyahu, the whole tide turned, and now, rather than a decisive defeat for a Great Prime Minister, it looks like a big come-from-behind stalemate, or even a WIN for Netanyahu. It all took place AFTER the Endorsement by President Trump, who only wants what is good for the Middle East, Israel, and the United States of America!”
A record number of Israelis are expected to have voted at “special polling stations” in 2026, casting more confusion into the mix as the results as these ballots are not expected to be announced before Thursday.
Under Israeli electoral law, each voter is assigned to a specific polling station and can only vote at that station. However in exceptional circumstances, some voters are allowed to cast their ballot at special polling stations they are not registered at. Among those afforded this exception are soldiers stationed at IDF bases, diplomats working abroad, prisoners and prison guards and people in hospital.
Ballot boxes from these special polling stations are transported directly to the Knesset where they undergo a series of checks before they are counted.
According to some reports, Israel’s Central Elections Committee expects between 600,000 and 650,000 people to vote in such a way, almost 10% of elegible voters and an unprecedented number in Israeli electoral history.
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While the count continues, let’s recap some of the comments made by Benjamin Netanyahu and rival Gadi Eisenkot in their speeches to supporters.
Netanyahu greeted cheering supporters at a Jerusalem convention centre after 3am. The 77-year-old prime minister was unusually brief and did not directly claim victory. He called for a “strong government of the right” and said that the “Jewish and Zionist majority must unite”.
He also listed leaders Israel has killed under his orders and again hinted that he was ready for a third bombing campaign against Iran alongside Donald Trump. “Israel has a unique opportunity with our partner President Trump to forever eliminate the existential threat of Iran,” he said.
Eisenkot, speaking earlier to his own supporters in Tel Aviv, issued a veiled warning to Netanyahu, who observers say could use a war to push for a unity government.
“Netanyahu, don’t you dare use Israel’s security for your political needs,” he said.
Addressing Israel’s security establishment, Eisenkot said that they served the state and not Netanyahu, calling him “a caretaker prime minister, without a mandate or the people’s trust”.
Supporters of the opposition bloc breathed a sigh of relief after the first exit polls were announced, but as the night has worn on nervousness has grown on both sides.
With exit polls shifting to put the two sides on equal footing, Agence France-Presse is reporting that voters like former Hamas hostage Ohad Ben Ami have expressed alarm that Netanyahu could come out ahead.
“Three years ago, the government abandoned us,” he said.
An Israeli citizen should never have spent a year and a half in Hamas tunnels when deals [with Hamas] were on the table.”
Netanyahu kept supporters waiting until past 3am in a Jerusalem convention centre. Known for his long, passionate speeches, he was unusually brief.
Ari Marx, holding a large sign bearing the prime minister’s image, said he was not “scared” of the results or of another war with Iran, which Netanyahu has threatened.
“Either Bibi is going to win or there’s going to be a new election,” he said, using Netanyahu’s nickname, doubting anyone else could form a government.
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Summary
It’s just after 6am in Tel Aviv where Israelis are waking up to exit polls that show no clear victor in yesterday’s elections, with uncertainty guaranteed at this point.
The polls published by Israel’s major TV networks show Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing bloc tied with the opposition grouping led by Gadi Eisenkot on 51 seats each, short of the 61 seats needed to form a majority coalition government.
Earlier exit polls had Eisenkot’s bloc winning most seats in the Knesset by a slight margin. Israeli exit polls are often revised after publication and are notoriously imprecise, with the final count often swinging by several seats.
Voter turnout surged to the highest level in more than two decades, underscoring the stakes of an election that has been labelled the most important in the country’s history. More than 77% of eligible voters cast a ballot, according to Israel’s central elections committee, about 7 percentage points higher than in 2022.
Final counting is ongoing, with more than 30% of the votes tabulated so far.
The Palestinian parties are projected to dramatically increase their representation in the Knesset, with predictions they could win as many as 18 seats, up from 10. Experts have said that if Eisenkot falls short of a majority, as the exit polls suggest, he would be obliged to sit down to talk to the Palestinian groupings, the Joint List and Ra’am, to try to form a government – which could take weeks.
It is also possible that Eisenkot could try to govern as a minority government, with informal vote-by-vote agreements that would keep the new coalition afloat.
Netanyahu took the stage at a post-election rally in Jerusalem just after 3am, telling his supporters official results will show that “Likud is the largest party in Israel”. He told his supporters that the country must “establish a strong, right-wing national government” – adding that a government that relies on the support of Palestinian parties must not be formed.
Eisenkot told cheering supporters in Tel Aviv that the “Israeli public has voted against Netanyahu’s service as Israel’s prime minister … a worthy leader would have accepted the people’s non-confidence and announced today his retirement from politics.” In his speech, he also warned Netanyahu not to “use Israel’s security” for political ends, playing on fears that the prime minister could use this period of uncertainty to launch a new attack on Iran.
The exit polls were released after a last-ditch effort by Netanyahu and several other parties to keep polling stations open beyond their 10pm deadline was rejected by the Central Elections Committee. The prime minister suggested publicly that efforts were being made by the “left and Arabs” to steal the election, a claim rejected by the committee, which said it had seen no evidence of systematic tampering.
Updated
