Israeli Exit Polls Show Tight Race as Eisenkot and Netanyahu Blocs Deadlock, Arab Lists Emerge as Kingmakers

At exactly 10:00 pm in Tel Aviv, the first exit polls landed in a hall packed with supporters of Gadi Eisenkot and his Yashar party, and the room cheered. The numbers gave a narrow edge to the bloc led by the former military chief of staff, a political novice trying to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving leader. "I feel better," Kalanit Sharon, 37, told AFP as the cheering broke out.

The relief did not last the night. As more results came in, exit polls shifted, and major television networks ended up placing the two sides on equal footing. Arab lists, which could become kingmakers, were making strong gains. Neither side appeared to have secured the votes to govern, and nervousness grew in both camps.

The vote was the first general election since Hamas's unprecedented attack of October 7, 2023, and turnout reached 77.7 percent, the highest since 1999. Netanyahu's opponents blame him for the security failures that led to the attack, and for refusing to set up an independent commission of inquiry. His political survival was at stake.

At Eisenkot's event, Ohad Ben Ami, a former hostage taken to Gaza by Hamas, spoke of what that failure had cost. "Three years ago, the government abandoned us," he said. He added that no Israeli citizen should have spent a year and a half in Hamas tunnels when deals to secure the hostages' release were on the table. Noa Ayal, a 31-year-old soldier who said she had completed more than 360 days of reserve duty, said she had been waiting a long time for this change. "I have a lot of hope, and if Gadi doesn't become prime minister, it will undoubtedly be very difficult," she said.

Eisenkot, who traded his usual plain black shirt for a suit and tie, promised to move quickly to form a government. That will be hard with neither bloc clearly over the line. Yaheli Lifshitz, a 23-year-old student, put it plainly: a new government would have to break with established rules and norms and build alliances that have never existed before.

At a Jerusalem convention centre rented by Netanyahu's Likud, the mood was one of uncertainty. A giant screen played a montage celebrating the prime minister, with footage of him hugging US President Donald Trump alongside military strikes from the wars he has led since the Hamas attack. When the first exit polls came out, Aliza Schukerman, a 70-year-old retiree, refused to concede. She said the count would take time, and that by 10:00 am the next day she was sure Netanyahu would be prime minister again.

Elie Pieprz, 53, was similarly confident. He said things usually move in Likud's favour as the night goes on, and that Netanyahu had performed better than some pre-campaign polls suggested. Asked about an opposition win, he called for a coalition that would still include Likud, citing the conflict with Iran and the need for strong ties with Washington. "Trying to change course in the middle of the journey is not a good idea," he said.

Anat Margolin, a 49-year-old engineer, was less sure. She said she did not know what to hope for, since the day had felt unpredictable and not what her side had prepared for. A regular viewer of Channel 14, an outlet supportive of Netanyahu, she said she had mostly heard predictions of a win for her candidate, not an opposition lead, however narrow. "We weren't hearing about that possibility," she said.

What comes next is the full count, expected to take until morning, and then the negotiation over whether either bloc can assemble a majority, with the Arab lists' gains likely central to that arithmetic.