Netanyahu’s bloc leads Israel election but falls short of majority as Arab parties surge

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing and religious bloc is leading Israel’s general election but appears set to fall short of a parliamentary majority, according to partial results.

With 85 per cent of ballots counted, Netanyahu’s Likud party and its far-right and ultra-Orthodox allies were on track to win 53 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, short of the 61 needed to govern.

The bloc led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, made up of his Yashar party and three other Jewish opposition parties, was set to win 48 seats. Both leaders have said they will attempt to form a governing coalition.

Arab-led parties, on course for an unprecedented 19 seats, could emerge as kingmakers. However, all but one of the Jewish parties have pledged not to work with them.

Final count and coalition process

Between 430,000 and 480,000 absentee ballots, cast by groups including soldiers, diplomats and hospital patients, had yet to be counted. The BBC reported that final results could take a day or two to emerge.

Once results are confirmed, President Isaac Herzog will consult every political faction and invite the leader he believes has the best chance of success to form a government. The process could take weeks.

If that leader fails, another election would ultimately be required.

Speaking at his residence in Jerusalem, Herzog praised the 77.7 per cent turnout in the election held on 27 October 2026, the highest in more than two decades.

“It is a badge of honour for Israeli society, and it was remarkable to see how deep the desire for democracy is in Israel,” he said.

Herzog said he expected to receive official results the following week. “We must do everything we can, certainly after yesterday, to avoid another round of elections. So, I expect everyone who comes here to come with an open mind,” he said.

Rival claims of victory

Eisenkot declared that the public had “spoken in favour of change” after initial exit polls from three Israeli broadcasters projected 52 to 53 seats for his “Change Bloc”, against 50 for Netanyahu’s bloc.

“The coalition of failure has lost the people’s trust,” he told supporters at Yashar’s headquarters in Tel Aviv. “I will work with my partners to ensure that the people’s decision is translated into a Zionist government.”

The broadcasters later revised their projections. Two forecast a tie at 51 seats each, while one gave Netanyahu’s bloc a narrow three-seat lead.

Netanyahu then addressed supporters at Likud’s headquarters in Jerusalem in the early hours of 28 October 2026, declaring that his right-wing bloc had won a “great majority”.

“We must put in place a strong right-wing national government,” he said. “It is forbidden, simply forbidden, to endanger Israel by forming a government that relies on anti-Zionist Arab parties.”

As counting continued, his bloc outperformed the exit polls. However, its projected 53 seats would be 15 fewer than the 68 it held at its peak in the outgoing Knesset.

According to the Associated Press (AP), Likud itself appeared to have fallen from 32 seats to around 27. It nonetheless looked set to remain the largest party, placing Netanyahu in the strongest position to be asked first to form a government.

On 28 October 2026, Likud claimed the election had been “stolen”, alleging the use of “bribery, threats, violence, fraud and the use of prohibited software to encourage voters”. The party did not provide evidence.

The Central Elections Committee said it would examine the claims as part of a post-election review.

A historic result for Arab-led parties

The United Arab List, also known as Ra’am, and the Joint List are set to almost double their representation, driven by a surge in turnout among Arab citizens.

Arab Israelis make up about a fifth of the population, and many describe themselves as Palestinian citizens of Israel. According to France 24, Arab parties won 10 seats in 2022, the last election before the 7 October 2023 attacks.

Mahdi Kabaha, who lives in a village near Haifa and campaigned to mobilise Arab voters, described the result to the BBC as “historic”. “Arab citizens came out and said clearly: we want a real say in this country,” he said.

Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas, who served in a short-lived coalition formed after the 2021 election, said he hoped “the numbers will work out” so that the Change Bloc and his party could secure 61 seats.

Sylvaine Bulle, an expert on Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris, told France 24 that Palestinian citizens of Israel had “woken up”.

She attributed this to the war in Gaza and, above all, to the occupied West Bank, citing increased settler violence and threats by Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners to formally annex the territory.

Joint List head Yousef Jabareen told the BBC that Arab voters were partly motivated by the chance to remove National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir from office, accusing him of racism and “provocation against our community”.

Ben-Gvir, leader of the Jewish Power party, has called for the annexation of the occupied West Bank, Jewish settlement of Gaza and the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians. Several Western countries have sanctioned him for incitement against Palestinians.

Conditions and calls for partnership

Eisenkot has previously objected to, or attached conditions to, an alliance with Arab parties. The right-wing parties in his bloc have rejected such a partnership outright.

According to France 24, his conditions are recognising Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, accepting the principles of its declaration of independence, extending conscription to Palestinian citizens and denouncing Hamas as a terrorist group.

Amjad Shbita, head of the largest party in the Joint List, rejected that approach. “Laying down the conditions won’t work with the Joint List. We will negotiate as equals,” he said.

Jabareen took a similar line. “The opposition parties cannot dictate any conditions,” he told the BBC, adding that an opposition seeking “real and substantive change” would “have to negotiate with us”.

Yair Golan, leader of the left-wing Democrats party, urged his partners in Eisenkot’s bloc to seize the “opportunity to form a government of change in partnership with Israel’s Arab citizens”.

“We have no future here if we don’t stop being afraid. And if we don’t put an end to racism,” he wrote on X.

Difficult paths to power

AP noted that Netanyahu would need at least one opposition party, or several defectors, to govern. Most have pledged not to join him, although he could offer concessions.

Tamar Hermann, senior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, said Netanyahu “manages to overcome situations that I can’t see anyone else managing to overcome”. “Politically, he is a magician,” she said.

Aviv Bushinsky, a political commentator and former Netanyahu adviser, told AP that the size of the Arab vote could make an alliance with Eisenkot less likely. “Israeli society is not ready for it,” he said.

Bulle suggested Eisenkot could instead form a minority government supported by Arab parties from outside the coalition. She said this would require delicate negotiations on a common programme, potentially including an end to the occupation of the West Bank.

A divided electorate

The election was the first since the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage, and the wars that followed in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

AP described the vote as a referendum on Netanyahu’s nearly unbroken 17-year rule. Key issues included accountability for the 7 October security failures, the conduct of regional wars, ultra-Orthodox conscription, judicial reform and Israel’s international standing.

Avigail Levine from Kfar Saba, who voted for former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s Beyachad party, told the BBC she was disappointed. “The people in power on 7 October should not be in power now,” she said.

Gal, a voter from Ramat Gan, said he backed Netanyahu because Israelis “cannot relax and live in peace with neighbours when all they want is to erase us from the map”.

He added that he was “afraid of the strengthening of the Arab political parties”. AP said the apparent stalemate suggested Israel’s divisions were deeper than ever.