Israel Election Results Live Updates: Exit Polls Show No Clear Winner

By early Wednesday afternoon, election officials had counted more than 70 percent of ballots. The votes counted so far — alongside the exit polls — indicate that neither bloc would reach the 61 seats needed to secure a straightforward majority in the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament.

Some of Mr. Netanyahu’s allies are floating the idea that he could join Mr. Eisenkot and other centrists to form a broad unity government to stay in power. For Mr. Netanyahu, who remains as a caretaker prime minister until a government is formed, that would be a comfortable scenario, as long as he remained on top.

His primary rival, Mr. Eisenkot, faces a thorny dilemma of his own: He has denounced Mr. Netanyahu as unfit to lead Israel, but he has also objected to partnering with Arab parties in a potential coalition. The two Arab parties are projected to win as many as 17 seats — a remarkable show of strength that could make them Mr. Eisenkot’s only path to toppling Mr. Netanyahu.

On Wednesday, Mr. Eisenkot did not explicitly mention the Arab parties and instead pledged to build “a stable Zionist government.”

Turnout in Tuesday’s election, widely seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, was the highest in at least a quarter-century. It was the first election since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks ignited three years of war.

Most of the votes were expected to be counted by Wednesday, though the final tally could take days. Lengthy negotiations could follow as political parties try to assemble a governing majority. If those negotiations fail, the country could head to a second round of elections — a scenario that has played out before. For Mr. Netanyahu, playing down the clock in the hope of securing a stronger showing in a fresh election could be his strongest shot at retaining his role as prime minister.

The uncertainty did not stop the leading candidates from making triumphant late-night speeches to their supporters.

Mr. Eisenkot, a former Israeli military chief of staff, struck a defiant tone toward Mr. Netanyahu, saying: “Tonight we got the answer: The public opted for change.”

A few hours later, Mr. Netanyahu told supporters that his party, Likud, had emerged as the largest in Israel. “We must form a strong right-wing government,” he said.

Here’s what else we are covering:

• Herzog’s role: President Isaac Herzog of Israel holds a largely ceremonial position, except after national elections, when it falls to him to select a potential prime minister. Read more ›

• More votes: The exit polls do not reflect the hundreds of thousands of votes cast at special polling stations, including at military bases, hospitals, prisons and embassies. In Israel’s 2022 election, those votes tended to favor Mr. Netanyahu and his allies.

• War fears: Following reports that Mr. Netanyahu has been pushing for renewed attacks on Iran, Mr. Eisenkot warned him against abusing his power as caretaker prime minister. “Netanyahu, don’t dare use Israel’s security for your political needs,” he said in his post-election speech.

• Initial results: The 70 percent of the votes counted indicate that Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition will receive about 54 seats, Mr. Eisenkot’s bloc will get roughly 49, and the Arab parties will reach 17. But the numbers could still easily shift.

While the outcome of the election is unlikely to prompt Israel to change course, it may decide how far the country is prepared to take its regional ambitions.

Re-election for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, backed by his far-right coalition partners, could embolden him to again escalate the war with Iran and push diplomacy with Israel’s neighbors farther out of reach, analysts said.

And in both Lebanon and Syria, where Israeli forces have established and expanded military-controlled buffer zones over the past two years, a win for Mr. Netanyahu could see Israel further entrench or expand its occupation.

Even if Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition doesn’t win, many in the region do not see “any major visible strategic difference among the candidates,” said Paul Salem, a nonresident senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“They don’t see much difference in Israel’s forward defense that it insists on having — the occupied zones in Syria, in Lebanon, in Gaza and the West Bank that is just adding instability regionally,” he added.

The same is true of Palestinian statehood, which remains a distant prospect regardless of the election’s outcome. It has been a central issue for Israel’s neighbors and for American-led efforts to seek normalized relations between Israel and Gulf countries.

Saudi Arabia and others have said any agreement with Israel would require the creation of a Palestinian state. But with Israeli proponents of a two-state solution now relegated to the political fringes, such a deal appears more distant than ever.

In Iran, the outcome of the Israeli election could have more immediate consequence. While Israel’s animosity toward Tehran is unlikely to change regardless of who is in power, a change in leadership could alter the course of the war.

Ahead of the election, Mr. Netanyahu sought to energize his voter base by saying that he was the person President Trump wanted by his side to “finish the job once and for all.”

Iranian officials believe a victory for Mr. Netanyahu could prolong the American-Israeli military campaign against Iran, leading to an even more protracted conflict, analysts say. And there is no clear sign among the opposition that they would seek to curtail Israel’s confrontation with Iran.

Israel’s current approach to Iran “poses a major threat to Iran’s security and very existence,” said Hadi Borhani, a professor of Israeli studies at the University of Tehran. “From this perspective, Netanyahu’s re-election poses a threat to Iran’s territorial integrity as a whole.”

Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting.

While the president can choose the leader of the party that won the most votes, he can also select another leader who seems more likely to assemble a coalition that can secure a vote of confidence in the Knesset.

In 2009, President Shimon Peres chose Benjamin Netanyahu — the current prime minister — even though his right-wing Likud party had won fewer votes than the centrist Kadima party.

Early exit polls on Wednesday suggest a tight race between the far-right coalition led by Mr. Netanyahu and the center-right opposition bloc that has called for change. The opposition bloc includes the Yashar party, led by Gadi Eisenkot. But Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party appears to have received the most votes, which means he will argue that he should be selected as prime minister.

Mr. Herzog, whose job is to stay above the political fray, is expected to face a difficult decision. He must discern whether the votes show that the majority of Israelis demanded change or if they indicated a preference for another Netanyahu government.

Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition, the most right-wing in Israel’s history, has drawn international condemnation, heightened tensions with allies and divided Israelis. Mr. Herzog has repeatedly criticized what he has called “a terrible process of brutalization” creeping into Israeli society, citing violence by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank against Palestinians and the abuse of detainees in Israeli custody, which some far-right ministers in Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition are accused of encouraging.

The Israeli president, who can grant criminal pardons and commute sentences, has also faced pressure from President Trump, who has called on him to pardon Mr. Netanyahu as he stands trial on corruption charges. Mr. Herzog has respectfully resisted, saying that “Israel is a sovereign state governed by the rule of law.”

Mr. Netanyahu has long resisted calls for an independent commission of inquiry into the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel that set off a devastating war in Gaza. He has also refused to take responsibility for any failures that led to the attack, angering many Israelis.

But if the president taps Mr. Eisenkot, a former military chief whose son was killed in the war in Gaza and who has vowed to launch a state inquiry into the 2023 attack, there is no guarantee he will succeed in forming a government. The center-right opposition bloc would need to ally with the country’s Arab parties, which appear to have secured more parliamentary seats than ever before. The bloc’s leaders have not agreed to such an alliance, while Mr. Netanyahu has effectively ruled out including Arab parties in a governing coalition.

Both the far-right and far-left blocs face obstacles to assembling a governing majority. They would need agreements with other parties and factions that may be politically unpalatable, or even impossible.

Mansour Abbas, the leader of Raam, told a television interviewer that the turnout showed that Arab voters, who make up about 20 percent of Israel’s population, had channeled their “frustration and despair” into “hope.”

He said he wanted to replace Mr. Netanyahu’s government “in every possible way” and that his first priority was to “ensure that there is a chance of forming a government” that achieved that goal.

The Arab parties’ strong showing may make them kingmakers. But building a governing coalition with Arab participation remains a fraught exercise in Israel. Many Israeli Jews believe that a parliamentary majority should not rely on the support of Arab lawmakers.

Most Arab citizens are the descendants of Palestinians who remained in their homes during the 1948 Arab-Israel war at the time of Israel’s independence.

Today, they mostly live in separate towns from Jewish Israelis and face violence and discriminatory housing policies.

Over the decades, disagreements, including over Israel’s nature as a Jewish state, have led many Arab voters to avoid the ballot box.

This week, many Arab voters said they were furious at Mr. Netanyahu for his treatment of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and for policies that they feel treat Palestinians in Israel as second-class citizens. Indeed, throughout the campaign, Mr. Netanyahu made overt appeals to anti-Arab prejudice.

“I’m very optimistic because people understand that this isn’t like ordinary elections — we want change,” said Kholoud Al-Zeinati, 39, an Arab Israeli voter who cast her ballot on Tuesday in the mixed Jewish-Arab city of Lod, where long lines formed at polling places. “Because we, as the Arab community, are the community that pays the biggest price across so many aspects of life, it’s important to come out and take part.”

“I expect our votes to be truly decisive in shaping the next government and making things better for all of us,” she added.

Of the two Arab parties that did well on Tuesday, only Raam has joined a coalition government in the past. That happened in 2021, when it joined the short-lived anti-Netanyahu coalition of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

Raam’s participation in that government outraged many right-wing Jewish voters, and when it collapsed after roughly one year, they backed Mr. Netanyahu, who went on to form the most hard-line government in Israel’s history.

That government now faces the possibility that it may be brought down by an election result that has been deeply shaped by robust Arab turnout.

Heedo Abu Laban contributed reporting from Lod, Israel.

“It’s over,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time.”

The comments were a reflection of Israel’s deepening global isolation, with even once-staunch allies imposing or threatening economic sanctions and embargoes after years of war in Gaza and rampant violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

With settlers advancing into areas that were previously off limits, Britain last month decried what it called “ethnic cleansing” and announced trade sanctions on settlements that it said would also apply to entities that financed their construction. Though Israel’s banking system has not been directly targeted by sanctions, a dozen countries, including Canada, France and Spain, have said they support restrictions on trade with settlements, raising the prospect of further penalties that could affect Israeli financial institutions.

Opponents of Mr. Netanyahu’s government decried his pronouncements, which also drew a rebuke from the generally reserved central bank.

“Crypto currencies cannot serve as a route to bypass sanctions against Israel,” the Bank of Israel said in a statement. The bank added that the government would do better “to focus on preventing sanctions” and preserving Israel’s economic ties with its main trading partners.

Commentators said that Mr. Netanyahu’s outlook sounded apocalyptic, and some said it was part of a scare campaign to improve his election prospects.

Last year, amid growing global condemnation of the Israeli military’s conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza, where it has been accused of war crimes, and the imposition of some arms embargoes, he warned that Israel would have to become a more self-sufficient “super-Sparta.” That reference to the ancient, insular Greek city-state that practiced militaristic self-reliance was, to critics, a frightening scenario for a small country whose economy is largely driven by a tech sector that is reliant on foreign investment.

Gadi Eisenkot, Mr. Netanyahu’s main rival in Tuesday’s election, said in a social media post that the prime minister’s “Bibi-coin vision,” a nod to cryptocurrency, would “dismantle the Israeli economy for generations.”

“No internet purchases, no high-tech investments, no national security,” he added.

Yair Lapid, the opposition leader who has served as prime minister and finance minister, wrote on social media that a vote for Mr. Netanyahu was a vote for “a ruined economy, sanctions that will lead to insane price hikes, and no military alliance with the United States.”

And a former governor of the Bank of Israel, Jacob Frenkel, told Israel’s Channel 12 on Sunday that moving away from the international financial system would turn Israel into “a leper.”

Mr. Netanyahu later walked back his remarks slightly, saying that he had heard the criticism and that cryptocurrency was only one option to deal with potential financial sanctions.

In a somewhat jarring contrast, Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign has argued that Israel’s economy overall is healthy despite years of war, helped by record export revenues, relatively low inflation and unemployment, and a strong shekel.

But many Israelis are not feeling it. The State Comptroller, a government watchdog, warned last year that the cost of living was “skyrocketing” in part because of structural challenges in Israel’s consumer market and low competition levels.

While foreign affairs and national security have dominated the political conversation ahead of the election, a recent survey by the Israel Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan research group, found that the economy was the top issue for many voters heading into Tuesday.

“The Israeli government has enormous influence over our lives,” said Montaser Amro, 32, a supermarket owner in Majd, a village near the southern city of Hebron. “It chooses when roadblocks open and close, it controls the borders, and it decides on how much of our economy functions.”

He added, “Why can’t we vote when settlers living hundreds of meters away can?”

Israel captured the West Bank in 1967 and reached an agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization to establish the Palestinian Authority in the 1990s. The Palestinian Authority administers parts of the West Bank and has not held parliamentary or presidential elections for roughly 20 years.

Many Palestinians have long hoped the Palestinian Authority would transform into an independent Palestinian state. In recent years, those hopes have dwindled. The Israeli government promotes the expansion of settlements in the West Bank that are widely considered illegal under international law and rejects Palestinian self-determination there and in Gaza. Palestinian officials have also failed to unify their ranks and renew their leadership.

Alaa al-Khabass, 40, a resident of Hebron, said it was unjust that Palestinians could not cast ballots.

“Israel controls just about everything related to us, and I don’t see that changing any time soon,” he said. “We should be able to vote, but we live in painful reality where we lack rights and sovereignty.”

Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the war in Gaza that followed, a growing number of Democrats have been under pressure from younger and progressive voters who are a crucial part of their base.

Lawmakers have begun rebuking Israel in ways that were once unimaginable. They have pointed to tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed in Gaza and focused much of their ire on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, whose actions and policies have left his country diplomatically isolated and who has become a political lightning rod in the United States. That has put at risk the bipartisan support for military aid that Israel has always counted on from American lawmakers.

A handful of far-right Republicans and libertarians in Congress have also questioned U.S. support for Israel, raising concern about Palestinian deaths and spending American money to defend a far-off ally. But the skepticism is far more widespread among Democrats.

The midterm elections have been shaped in part by Democratic voters’ mounting hostility toward Israel. Party leaders now view the issue as one of the major fault lines they will have to contend with next year if they win back control of Congress in November.

Over the past year, almost half of House Democrats voted to cut off aid to Israel. Democratic leaders who have long been staunch allies have said that the U.S.-Israeli relationship needs a fundamental reset, including a rethinking of the 10-year memorandum of understanding that commits billions of dollars of annual security aid to Israel, which will soon expire.

And Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, who is the highest-ranking Jewish official in the nation, has condemned Mr. Netanyahu on the Senate floor and called for new leadership in Israel.

In recent weeks, top Democrats in the House and the Senate have proposed legislation that would impose sanctions on Israel for building settlements, making clear to Israeli companies and banks that they could be penalized for ties to such activity.

Those moves are in line with what lawmakers are hearing from voters.

A New York Times/Siena national poll conducted in May found that 74 percent of Democratic voters opposed providing additional economic and military support to Israel. A Pew Research Center poll in April found that eight in 10 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents had an unfavorable view of Israel.