The day so far
Israel’s future hangs in the balance as it has become clear that Benjamin Netanyahu has lost his governing majority. His political fate now depends on whether opposition Jewish parties are prepared to forge a common front with Palestinian parties, whose support surged in Tuesday’s historic elections. Indeed, Gadi Eisenkot and his allies face a clear choice: either make a pact with Arab Israeli parties heading for a record result of 19 seats, or hand Netanyahu a political lifeline in the form of new elections or a unity government.
Yair Golan, the leader of the centre-left Democrats, a junior partner in Eisenkot’s bloc, has told Israeli media that he will meet with three leaders tomorrow for coalition talks. According to the Times of Israel, they will be Eisenkot, the leading opposition candidate and chair of the Yashar party, and Yair Lapid, the number-two in the opposition B’Yachad party. This would mark the official start of coalition talks, and Golan has been the only opposition leader so far backing working with the parties led by Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Israel’s Central Elections Committee said it had received the Likud party’s complaint alleging that Arab parties had compromised election integrity and would examine the claims as part of its routine post-election review. Netanyahu’s party responded to partial election results showing Arab-led parties could play a king-making role in forming a new government by accusing them – without evidence – of “stealing” the election and demanding that the police and Shin Bet security service investigate the allegations.
UN rights chief Volker Turk has said that he hopes the next Israeli government will “change course massively” and respect international law. “The message is: don’t continue the current course of warfare where you think you are above international law, because I think that’s what we have frankly seen in the current environment,” Turk told reporters in New York. He added: “Israel has its obligations under international law, international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and they need to respect them, and I hope that the next government will do precisely that and change course massively.”
Israel’s choice: Netanyahu remaining in power or a Palestinian-backed coalition
in Jerusalem
Hours before the final results from Israel’s elections were in, several things were clear. Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition had lost its mandate, and the opposition had a firm majority.
But most of Israel’s Jewish opposition ruled out governing with Palestinian-led parties, in the course of a racist election campaign in which Netanyahu painted Palestinian citizens as an enemy inside the state.
The self-imposed ban on a broader opposition alliance, if it holds, offers Netanyahu the prospect of turning his defeat into another term in office – or at least a prolonged mandate as caretaker prime minister and perhaps another round of elections.
This confected barrier to unseating Netanyahu became the focus of Israeli media and analysts. “No Clear Government” announced the newspaper Israel Hayom. “Road to Unity Government Has Been Paved”, read an article on Channel 12.
Yair Golan, leader of the centre-left Democrats, attacked that framing. “Netanyahu lost. I know how to count,” he said in a statement calling for a government with Palestinians, who make up about 20% of Israel’s population.
Other Israelis were even more direct. “If you stop being racist two amazing things will happen to you,” musician Yali Sobol wrote in a Facebook post. “First, you will stop being racist. Second, you will discover you have won.”
While Palestinian-led parties do not describe themselves as Zionist, neither do some of the ultra-Orthodox groups who are a key part of Netanyahu’s current coalition.
A survey taken as polls closed on election day showed that a clear majority of opposition voters supported forming a government with the Palestinian-led Ra’am in order to unseat Netanyahu, political psychology researcher Eran Halperin said.
But opposition leaders were silent on Wednesday, as they apparently tried to balance their desire to unseat Netanyahu with promises against working with Palestinians.
Former general Gadi Eisenkot, who leads the biggest opposition party, has not directly ruled out governing with Palestinians but laid out conditions that made it politically impossible for them to join a coalition.
Palestinians have been clearer about their priorities. “We are ready and prepared to pave the way for the ousting of the Netanyahu government,” Yousef Jabareen, leader of the larger Joint List, said on Wednesday. “The change comes through Jewish-Arab partnership.”
For Palestinian citizens facing surging crime, discrimination and home demolitions inside Israel and watching family and friends endure ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank and a war of annihilation in Gaza, that was viscerally true, and they came out in record numbers.
Israel describes itself as a Jewish and democratic state. If the representatives of Palestinians are now effectively excluded from government because of their race, Netanyahu will have turned that promise into more of a choice – between a Jewish future or a democratic one.
Israel’s Central Elections Committee has announced that the distribution of Knesset seats remains unchanged after 88.62% of the votes cast at polling stations across the country have now been counted.
The pro-Netanyahu bloc remains at 53 seats, while the opposition has 67, split between 48 for the Jewish-led parties and 19 for the Arab-led parties.
Further, the committee estimates that the total number of “double envelope” absentee ballots will be between 430,000 and 480,000. These are cast at special voting sites including military bases, prisons, and hospitals, and by diplomats, and have yet to be tallied.
Counting of those ballots is expected to begin at around 1am local time, and to conclude by Thursday evening, according to a committee spokesperson.
The day so far
Israel’s future hangs in the balance as it has become clear that Benjamin Netanyahu has lost his governing majority. His political fate now depends on whether opposition Jewish parties are prepared to forge a common front with Palestinian parties, whose support surged in Tuesday’s historic elections. Indeed, Gadi Eisenkot and his allies face a clear choice: either make a pact with Arab Israeli parties heading for a record result of 19 seats, or hand Netanyahu a political lifeline in the form of new elections or a unity government.
Yair Golan, the leader of the centre-left Democrats, a junior partner in Eisenkot’s bloc, has told Israeli media that he will meet with three leaders tomorrow for coalition talks. According to the Times of Israel, they will be Eisenkot, the leading opposition candidate and chair of the Yashar party, and Yair Lapid, the number-two in the opposition B’Yachad party. This would mark the official start of coalition talks, and Golan has been the only opposition leader so far backing working with the parties led by Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Israel’s Central Elections Committee said it had received the Likud party’s complaint alleging that Arab parties had compromised election integrity and would examine the claims as part of its routine post-election review. Netanyahu’s party responded to partial election results showing Arab-led parties could play a king-making role in forming a new government by accusing them – without evidence – of “stealing” the election and demanding that the police and Shin Bet security service investigate the allegations.
UN rights chief Volker Turk has said that he hopes the next Israeli government will “change course massively” and respect international law. “The message is: don’t continue the current course of warfare where you think you are above international law, because I think that’s what we have frankly seen in the current environment,” Turk told reporters in New York. He added: “Israel has its obligations under international law, international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and they need to respect them, and I hope that the next government will do precisely that and change course massively.”
Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem has said that the Iran-backed Lebanese movement is “not concerned” with the results of Israel’s election, vowing to continue its “resistance” against its neighbour no matter who wins.
“We do not concern ourselves with who governs Israel, but let it be perfectly clear that it cannot continue its occupation and must leave our land,” Qassem said in a written statement, quoted by Agence France-Presse.
“The resistance will continue … and will stand up to the aggression directed against it and against Lebanon, and there is no room to discuss the disarmament [of Hezbollah] as long as the occupation persists and its aggression continues,” he added.
The group, which once dominated political life in Lebanon, has been weakened by two wars against Israel since 2023.
In June, Lebanese and Israeli authorities signed a framework agreement which involves the disarmament of Hezbollah, a gradual Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory, and the deployment of the Lebanese army to the area.
But Israel has continued to carry out sporadic, deadly strikes and demolitions in and around the Lebanese territory it occupies, while Hezbollah has refused to submit to government plans to disarm it.
Israel’s Central Elections Committee earlier said it had received the Likud party’s complaint alleging that Arab parties had compromised election integrity and would examine the claims as part of its routine post-election review.
The committee said it had launched an oversight operation, as it does after every election, to review all parties’ complaints about election integrity or alleged errors in the results.
As we reported earlier, Likud responded to partial election results showing Arab-led parties set to win a record 19 seats (meaning they could play a king-making role in forming a new government) by accusing them – without evidence – of “stealing” the election and demanding that the police and Shin Bet security service investigate the allegations.
UN rights chief wants next Israeli government to 'change course massively' and respect international law
UN rights chief Volker Turk has said that he hopes the next Israeli government will “change course massively” and respect international law, as the country’s political future hangs in the balance after hard-fought elections.
“The message is: don’t continue the current course of warfare where you think you are above international law, because I think that’s what we have frankly seen in the current environment,” Turk told reporters in New York.
Earlier this week, Turk warned that Israel’s military occupation in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, launched after a deadly attack by Palestinian gunmen, raised serious concerns of “ethnic cleansing”.
“Collective punishment is a grave violation of international law,” he said in a statement on Monday.
Ahmad Tibi, the leader of Ta’al, one of the three parties making up the Palestinian-led Joint List grouping, said he will work with Jewish Israeli parties “to pave the way for an alternative government led by Gadi Eisenkot.”
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has lost his mandate but most of the Jewish-Israeli opposition have ruled out sharing power with Palestinian parties, who are forecast to claim up to 19 seats. Without them, there is no opposition majority.
“We have made a clear political decision: we will do everything within our parliamentary and democratic power to end Netanyahu’s rule and facilitate the establishment of a new government,” Tibi told the Guardian in written comments.
That could start as soon as a new Knesset is seated, even without a full coalition agreement he indicated.
“We extend our hand and are ready to cooperate with the opposition, including in replacing the current speaker of the Knesset with an opposition candidate and enabling the formation of an alternative government,” he said.
“The voters have given us a strong mandate, and we intend to use it responsibly and effectively.”
US president Donald Trump said he hadn’t thought about getting involved in efforts to form a Netanyahu-led government.
“I will take a look,” he told Axios.
Trump also said he thought Netanyahu was in “pretty good shape.” He endorsed the Israeli prime minister in the final stretch of his campaign and praised him as a strong partner in the war with Iran.
Israel’s high-turnout vote was brushed aside by some in the rest of the Middle East.
In Tehran, banners with images of slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reminded Iranians of US and Israeli strikes launched in February which kicked off the war.
Just to the right was a poster of late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed on Netanyahu’s orders in Lebanon.
“I genuinely see the possibility of attack,” said 50-year-old Iranian citizen Abdollah Karimi.
Frustration was also palpable in Egypt, the first Arab country to make peace with Israel in 1979.
Outhman Selim, a 62-year-old lawyer, said his hopes that a Netanyahu defeat would steer the country away from the far-right had been dashed.
Netanyahu's Likud accuses Arab parties – without evidence – of having 'stolen' election
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud accused Arab parties of having stolen the country’s election, after partial results showed they could play a kingmaking role in forming a new government.
“The elections in the state of Israel have been stolen by Arab parties who support terrorism and the annihilation of the Jewish state through serious criminal acts of corruption, threats, violence, falsehoods and the use of prohibited software to encourage voters to vote,” the party said in a statement, adding that it was submitting testimonies and evidence to the authorities.
With 85% of votes counted, two Arab-led parties – Ra’am and Joint List – had won 19 seats in the Knesset.
The mood was joyful overnight at the headquarters of the United Arab List, the lone Arab party to ever join a governing coalition, briefly, in 2021.
So far in the count it has won 12 Knesset seats.
“We are here, we are not on the sidelines,” party leader Mansour Abbas declared. Some Israelis found that an unusual, if not uncomfortable, prospect.
“We are little by little coming to a situation where we have to face reality,” said Hanna Doukhan, a voter in Tel Aviv. “I don’t see a possibility to form a government without the Arabs.”
Others were hopeful. “This would open the door to repairing our society” while preserving Israel as the national home of the Jewish people, said Eti Wissotzky-Cohen in Tel Aviv.
And in Nazareth, one of Israel’s largest Arab cities, Awni Zoabi thanked God for a possible return to rationality in a country where extreme rhetoric has increased . “The Arabic language has become as if it were a crime,” Zoabi told AP.
Israel’s president has voiced hope over avoiding a second election after a hard-fought vote produced no clear winner, leaving prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the opposition scrambling for options and making Israeli Arab parties possible kingmakers.
“We must do everything we can, certainly after yesterday, to avoid another round of elections,” said president Isaac Herzog, who is tasked with determining which candidate to tap to form a government, and who urged parties to keep “an open mind”.
Yousef Jabareen, head of the leftist Arab-majority Joint List, said the Israeli public had voted for new leadership and “anyone who wants to offer a substantive and genuine alternative to Netanyahu’s blood-soaked government will have to talk to us”.
“It’s either the continuation of racism, the continuation of exclusion and the continuation of supremacy, or a genuine Jewish-Arab partnership,” he said.
Hasan al-Masri, who was displaced from his home in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, told AP that he desperately hoped the election would bring change to Gaza.
“We pray to God that these elections bring a positive outcome for us,” he said.
“We have been utterly devastated; nothing remains. They have killed our children, destroyed our homes, and everything we had is gone.”
The future of Gaza was barely an issue in the Israeli election campaign and the only major candidate to talk in favor of the two-state solution was Yair Golan, the head of the small Democrats party.
In the southern Gaza strip, where Israeli airstrikes are still a regular occurrence despite a ceasefire, residents of the city of Khan Younis were following the results of Israel’s election closely, hoping that anyone but prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will form the next government.
“All of their policies towards Gaza are tough, but we choose the lesser of two evils,” resident Ayman Ahmed told AP. Ahmed said that he hoped Netanyahu’s main challenger, Gadi Eisenkot, would prevail, noting that he supports US president Donald Trump’s roadmap for Gaza .
The plan calls for disarming the Hamas militant group and installing a new US-backed government. But it also requires Israel to withdraw forces and allow reconstruction to begin.
Netanyahu agreed to the Trump plan but never carried it out beyond the initial stage of a partial withdrawal and increased aid in exchange for the return of the final hostages, alive and dead, held by Hamas. The plan has been largely frozen for nearly a year.
In the rubble-strewn streets near the city’s Nasser Hospital, Mohammed Abed said that a Netanyahu win would be seen as a victory for his agenda, but that he didn’t expect major changes no matter who is in power.
“An Eisenkot victory will not dramatically change the situation, because their policies are almost similar,” Abed said. “In the end, it will be the same.”
Summary: the day so far
With more than 92% of ballots counted, the story of Israel’s first election since the October 7 attacks has become quite clear.
Netanyahu coalition government has lost its majority but his main opponents, an alliance of Jewish Israeli parties unofficially led by Gadi Eisenkot, have also failed to gain an outright majority.
Meanwhile the Palestinian Israeli parties, also seeking to oust Netanyahu, have received a historically strong vote with 19 seats in the 120-seat Knesset.
That means negotiations are underway for a coalition to be formed, and the key question is whether the Eisenkot-led ‘Change’ bloc will partner with Palestinian Israeli parties or if they will resort to a new election, or even working with Netanyahu.
Main result takeaways:
Netanyahu lost support. His Likud party remains the largest in parliament but has fewer seats, and the vote also dwindled for his far-right, religious extremist allies Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir
The parties opposing Netanyahu received greater support, but are divided into a Jewish coalition of parties and a Palestinian-Israeli bloc.
As such, there’s fevered debate over whether the ‘Change’ bloc (consisting of right-winger Naftali Bennett’s Together party, centre-left Yair Golan’s Democrats and the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party) will strike a deal with the Palestinian Israeli parties
The Joint List, a new ticket of several Arab-majority parties, triumphed with at least 12 seats, while Ra’am, the other Islamic party, won seven.
The Palestinian Israeli vote, which represents around 20% of the population, had long been seen as a decisive factor for who will be able to form government and the high turnout this election was driven by the community suffering increased racism and discrimination under Netanyahu’s government
Netanyahu refuses to work with Palestinian Israeli parties and repeated this pledge at his 3am address the night of the election
This is the most-voted for election in Israel’s political history with many Israelis flying back into the country to cast their vote and nearly 80% of IDF soldiers voting.
Donald Trump said his endorsement had helped Netanyahu perform better than polling estimates
What now?
We can expect absentee ballots to be counted tonight with final results by Thursday
President Isaac Herzong will then direct the political leader he believes is best placed to form government
Netanyahu will remain as caretaker until those negotiations are complete
All polling station votes counted as 92% of ballots tallied
The electoral committee’s count site has just refreshed its numbers and the Netanyahu bloc has dropped to 53 seats, the Jewish opposition Change bloc now has 48 seats and the Israeli Palestinian opposition parties have 19 seats.
More than 92% of the ballots have been tallied. Israeli news site Ynet says that’s essentially all of the votes cast at polling stations counted for as the remainder come from absentee ballots, which represent about 14% of votes.
So going by the in-country votes, the opposition, in total, have 67 seats.
Sixty one are needed for a majority in the Israeli parliament but there’s doubts over whether the Jewish opposition will enter a deal with Palestinian parties to form a coalition government.
Analysts have been pointing out what Democrats leader Yair Golan was emphasising earlier: Netanyahu has lost and the Jewish and Palestinian Israeli parties opposing him have won the most support.
Golan, who is a junior partner in the Change bloc, has been pushing for Jewish and Palestinian Israeli co-operation to form a government.
But because of the Jewish/Palestinian Israeli divide, it is a more complicated affair.
Mairav Zonszein, analyst at Crisis Group has written on X:
There is precedent for a government coalition involving Palestinian-Israeli parties
With Palestinian Israeli parties recording such a strong vote, they could play a decisive role in selecting Israel’s next leader.
However, Jewish Israeli and Palestinian Israeli parties teaming up to form a coalition is seen as a taboo – particularly after Netanyahu ramped up a racist, anti-Arab scare campaign in the wake of the October 7 attacks.
But a political deal is not unprecedented.
The Ra’am leader, Mansour Abbas, in 2021 took his party into a historic coalition government with then right-wing leader Naftali Bennett, now part of the opposition bloc.
Netanyahu had also started coalition negotiations with Abbas in previous years, although this election he’s described the idea as treasonous.
Among the Jewish opposition in the Change bloc, unofficial leader Gadi Eisenkot has said that he would be open to a partnership if the Palestinian Israeli parties recognised Israel as a Jewish state.
However, more right-wing parties in the bloc have refused to work alongside the Palestinians altogether.
Palestinian Israeli politicians have asserted that they would make a deal with a minority government of Jewish Israeli parties, in order to remove Netanyahu from government. The Joint List this morning called for a “genuine Jewish-Arab partnership”.
Yesterday my colleague Julian Borger was in Nazareth, the largest Palestinian-majority town in Israel.
Palestinian Israelis make up about 20% of the population, and their turnout this year has been critical to the results we’re seeing, where the two main Palestinian ticket options have secured at least 17 seats between them.
The Joint List, an alliance of Palestinian-Israeli parties, has performed particularly well, securing at least 11 seats in parliament.
The general secretary of Hadash, the leading party in the Joint List coalition, had told Julian that although the Jewish opposition bloc had ruled out working with Palestinian parties, he thought their approach might change after the elections.
“He cannot sit down [in coalition] with Netanyahu, and he won’t want to go back to another round of elections, so we think he can be flexible,” said Amjad Shbita.
Manar Hassan, an observer from Ra’am, the other significant Palestinian Israeli party, had also described the turnout as “amazing”.
“It’s never been this strong,” she said, adding that the reasons for the higher level participation were not hard to find.
“We witnessed a catastrophe in Gaza,” Hassan said. “Here we live in fear and anxiety. We need drastic change.”
