Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is locked in a tight electoral contest with opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot in the country’s first election since the October 7 Hamas attacks. Exit poll projections suggest a neck-and-neck contest, setting the stage for tense coalition negotiations to determine who will form the next government.
Arab parties Joint List and Raam are projected to win a record 19 seats – the largest Arab representation ever, according to exit polls.
Both have said they’d support Eisenkot on some level, having rallied supporters to help oust Netanyahu and prevent a new term they believe would be existential, according to Bloomberg. In his first remarks after the exit poll projections, Netanyahu said the results showed his bloc retained the support of a “decisive majority among the Zionist and Jewish public” and vowed to form a new government, even as his coalition appeared to fall short of a parliamentary majority.
Exit polls show Netanyahu’s Likud in the lead with 27 projected seats. Along with the rest of his bloc, he is projected to win 52 seats. The main opposition party, Eisenkot’s Yashar, is trailing with 21 projected seats, while his bloc is expected to win 49 seats overall. Netanyahu faces a tough challenge in the first election since the 2023 Hamas attacks While the final results are expected to be announced on October 30.
Follow LIVE updates on Israel elections “I would like to say to all the citizens of Israel. Yes, we were able to confront and defeat our enemies and we can do the same in the future. We are the lions. The roaring lions. And those who did not hear Israel’s voice in the past will hear it, and it doesn’t lie. He has faced scrutiny from the opposition over security failures, his policies towards Palestinians and Israel’s growing international isolation.
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”.
