Israelis vote on Tuesday in the country’s first general election since the Hamas led attack of October 7, 2023, and the wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran that followed. About 7.3 million people are eligible. Polling stations open at 7 a.m. and close at 10 p.m., voters choose among 37 registered party lists, and only lists clearing the 3.25 percent threshold win seats in the 120 seat Knesset. A government needs 61 seats, a total no single party has ever reached alone.
The final polls, published on Friday before the blackout, disagreed on the leader but agreed on the deadlock. A Channel 12 survey put former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot’s new centrist party Yashar first with 23 seats against 21 for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, and Channel 13 put Yashar at 22 and Likud at 19. The public broadcaster KAN projected 52 seats for Eisenkot’s bloc and 50 for Netanyahu’s. Polling for i24NEWS gave the Netanyahu camp 59 seats, still two short, and the pro government Channel 14 projected Likud well ahead as a single party. Both the KAN and i24NEWS surveys gave the Arab lists a combined 14 seats, which could make them the balance of power, although most Jewish opposition parties have so far ruled out governing with them.
The campaign closed on the two questions that have run through it. The opposition’s central demand is a state commission of inquiry into October 7, which Netanyahu has refused in favour of a political commission, and thousands marched in Tel Aviv on Saturday behind the victims’ families making that demand, as covered on this site yesterday. Netanyahu’s closing argument is security: he has cast himself as the leader who confronted Iran and its proxies, pressed President Donald Trump for more visible support in the final days, Axios reported, and received a Trump endorsement urging voters to back him to finish the job. Eisenkot’s closing line was that Netanyahu wants a tie and Israel needs a decisive result, because the leader of the largest party usually receives the first mandate to form a government.
The vote is being held inside a security operation. The military has closed all land crossings with the West Bank on election day and the Hebron operation continues, with about 2,000 residents displaced and no return date, as the updated West Bank story on this site records. Whatever the count on Tuesday night, the likely next phase is bargaining: if neither bloc reaches 61, Israel faces weeks of coalition talks, a possible unity or minority arrangement, or the prospect of another election.