Israelis began voting Tuesday in a pivotal, closely contested parliamentary election, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeking to remain in power against a coalition of opposition parties led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot.
Voters began casting their ballots at 7 a.m. local time in Israel. Polling stations are scheduled to close at 10 p.m. Thirty-eight electoral lists are competing for 120 seats in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. The Central Elections Committee said 7.3 million Israelis are eligible to vote, including approximately 330,000 first-time voters.
The Central Elections Committee said turnout had reached 31.5% by noon, the highest recorded at that time of day since 1973.
The election carries particular significance as Israel’s first since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas militants. It gives voters an opportunity to judge Netanyahu’s government over its handling of the attack, as well as his leadership of the wars that followed in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.
Netanyahu currently leads a governing coalition of right-wing, far-right and ultra-religious parties and may once again need the support of far-right leaders Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich to form a government. The question of whether he should continue to lead deeply divides Israelis.
Still, Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister with a total of 19 years in office, remains a formidable opponent to unseat, even as five parties from across the center, right and left have joined forces to oust him.
The anti-Netanyahu bloc includes Eisenkot’s Yashar party; the Together party, led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid; the Democrats, led by Yair Golan; and Yisrael Beiteinu, led by Avigdor Lieberman.
The election is too close to call. The latest opinion polls by Israel’s Channel 13 indicate that Netanyahu’s bloc could win 50 seats in the Knesset, compared with 54 for the anti-Netanyahu bloc led by Eisenkot. Both camps would fall short of the 61 seats needed for a parliamentary majority in the 120-seat Knesset.
Netanyahu’s campaign has focused on what he portrays as his achievements in the wars that followed the Oct. 7 attack as well as his alliance with U.S. President Donald Trump, who publicly endorsed him on Oct. 18.
On the eve of the election, Netanyahu touted Trump’s endorsement and suggested that the two leaders could resume the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran if he wins. In a post on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump urged voters to cast their ballots for Netanyahu, saying that the U.S. and Israel need to “finish the job.”
Eisenkot has accused Netanyahu of running his campaign on “intimidation, lies and threats” by fearmongering over the threat to Israel in the lead-up to the vote. He said he was confident that Trump would work “in full cooperation with whichever leader the people choose.”
He also said Israel’s next government must prevent Iran from acquiring a military nuclear capability, whether by force or through an “arrangement,” such as a U.S.-backed diplomatic solution.
Like the leaders of most Jewish-led parties in Israel, Eisenkot opposes a two-state solution, which has formed the basis of negotiations with the Palestinians for decades. However, he has criticized violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank, which has escalated since 2023 and damaged Israel’s relations with some countries in the West. Eisenkot also opposes Ben Gvir and Smotrich, Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners.
Higher turnout among Israel’s Arab minority could help tip the complex process of forming a governing coalition in Eisenkot’s favor. No party in Israel’s history has ever won an outright majority in a Knesset election. Governments are therefore formed through coalitions of parties.
The latest opinion poll projected that the Joint List would win nine seats and the United Arab List, known as Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas, would secure seven. Abbas has said he is willing to join a governing coalition that would replace Netanyahu’s right-wing government.
In 2021, Abbas’ party joined the coalition led by Bennett and Lapid, helping end Netanyahu’s uninterrupted 12-year tenure as prime minister.
If neither bloc succeeds in forming a government, Israel could enter a period of political deadlock, potentially followed by another election in 2027. Netanyahu would remain in office in a caretaker capacity during the interim period.
