Israel’s national election ended Tuesday with no clear winner, as television exit polls showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud as the largest party but his right-wing religious bloc well short of a governing majority.
Channel 13’s exit poll gave Likud 25 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, ahead of 23 for former military chief Gadi Eisenkot’s centrist Yashar party, The Times of Israel reported. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad was third with 14. The poll showed the anti-Netanyahu bloc at 53 seats and Netanyahu’s bloc at 50, with Arab-led parties taking a record 17.
Other networks showed a similar split. Channel 12 put the blocs at 50 for Netanyahu and 52 for his opponents, while public broadcaster Kan had 50 and 53, according to an exit poll tally. Pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 was the outlier, giving his camp 60 seats and Likud 30. Any coalition needs 61.
Exit polls, not results
Polls closed at 10 p.m. local time, 4 p.m. ET. Exit polls are often revised overnight, and official results are due by Nov. 4, NBC News reported. Turnout reached 77.7%, the highest in more than two decades.
Eisenkot quickly claimed a mandate. “The initial exit poll results indicate a complete lack of confidence in Netanyahu and the October 7 government,” he said, vowing to form a new government.
Netanyahu had made no public statement two hours after the polls were released, the Associated Press reported. If Likud finishes first, he could claim the first chance to build a coalition when Israel’s president consults party leaders.
A hard road for either side
The easiest path for the opposition would run through the Arab-led parties, which have generally stayed out of Israeli governing coalitions. Such a deal could split Eisenkot’s camp, and Netanyahu and his allies are expected to cast any alliance with those parties as illegitimate.
If neither side can assemble 61 seats, Israel could head to another election early next year, with Netanyahu remaining caretaker prime minister. The country held five elections between April 2019 and November 2022 amid a similar deadlock.
The vote was Israel’s first national election since the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, and the wars that followed in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. It was widely seen as a referendum on Netanyahu, who has led Israel for most of the past 17 years.
Arab voters celebrated the early numbers, while supporters of far-right parties aligned with Netanyahu expressed disappointment, according to the AP. Al Jazeera likewise described the outcome as having no clear winner.
Turnout was strong from the start of voting, as we reported earlier Tuesday. More than 7 million people were eligible to vote, and tens of thousands reportedly flew in from overseas, according to the AP.
The coalition talks that follow could take weeks.
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