No clear winner in Israel's election as Netanyahu's bloc leads but falls short of a governing majority

By nine on Wednesday evening, Israel's Central Elections Committee had counted more than five million votes, and the picture was still unsettled. With nearly 90 percent of ballots tallied, neither of the country's two major political blocs had reached the 61 seats needed to govern in the 120-member Knesset.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing bloc was on course for 53 seats. The opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot was projected at 48. Projections from Tuesday's voting also suggested the Arab parties, the Joint List and Ra'am, could together hold a record 19 seats.

The count is not finished. More than 500,000 special double-envelope ballots remain, including those cast by soldiers, diplomats and others who voted away from their registered polling stations. Those votes could change how the seats are distributed. Final results could arrive as early as Thursday evening, though no clear winner is expected to emerge from them.

The vote was the first since the October 7, 2023, attacks and the Gaza genocide, and it was widely read as a referendum on Netanyahu's leadership. The 77-year-old does not look defeated, even without a majority. He stays on as caretaker prime minister until a new government is formed. President Isaac Herzog will begin consulting party leaders next week, once official results are out. He has urged the parties to avoid another election that would stall government formation. Coalition building is the norm in Israel, and no party has ever won an outright majority in the country's history.

The arithmetic is hard because of choices made before the vote. Eisenkot ruled out a minority government that relied on Arab-led parties, and Netanyahu rejected the same idea. Because Netanyahu's bloc is set to be the largest, analysts expect him to try to form a unity government that could include Eisenkot, though that outcome is far from certain.

Eisenkot said on X on Wednesday that his alliance was now focused on the "heavy task" of bringing change and establishing a Zionist mobilisation government. He described the result as the will of voters who expressed no confidence in the government of October 7th and in what he called a bloc of shirkers, which he said was at a two-decade low.

Arab voter turnout was a record, and Likud responded with accusations. In a statement, the party said Arab parties had stolen the election through bribery, threats, violence, forgeries and prohibited software used to mobilise voters. Likud said it was handing the police, the Shin Bet and the Central Elections Committee hundreds of testimonies and pieces of evidence from many Arab polling stations. The source report does not say that any of this evidence has been verified.

The Joint List, in a statement published late Wednesday by Turkish news agency Anadolu, said preliminary figures showed Arab turnout had been decisive in keeping Netanyahu and his coalition short of a majority, while cautioning that final results were not yet in. It said voters had answered incitement and intimidation by rejecting a "government of butchers" and its policies of home demolitions, racism and war crimes. The alliance pledged to work to remove Netanyahu's government and said it was ready to cooperate toward an alternative. Its leader, Yousef Jabareen, said the Joint List could back an anti-Netanyahu government from outside but would not join it.

The next markers are the count of the 500,000-plus special ballots and Herzog's consultations next week, which will show whether a unity government, or a different arrangement, can be assembled.