Israelis voted Tuesday in a tight race between Netanyahu and Eisenkot. Neither has a clear path to power.
Israelis voted Tuesday in their first general election since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facing a fight for political survival against centrist rival Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief.
The vote follows three years of regional wars. Most polls show Eisenkot’s camp ahead of Netanyahu’s, but neither has a clear path to victory, NPR reported. To govern, parties must form a coalition controlling a majority of the 120-seat Knesset. Most polls put Netanyahu’s bloc, made up of his Likud party, two far-right parties led by Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, and two ultra-Orthodox parties, at 49 to 55 seats, short of the 61 needed. The pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 projects Likud at about 30 seats and Eisenkot’s party at about 20. The election could tip on a small number of votes, or it could end in a stalemate that forces another election next year.
Arab parties, which represent about 21% of Israel’s population, could become kingmakers if the result is as close as expected, France 24 reported. Neither Netanyahu nor Eisenkot has said publicly that they would partner with the predominantly Arab lists. Arab turnout was 53.2% in the 2022 election, compared with 70.6% overall. Thirty-eight lists were approved to run, and Israel does not allow absentee voting, so tens of thousands of expatriates were expected to fly home to cast ballots.
Voters described what drove their choices. Zipporah Bennett, an 85-year-old retiree in Tel Aviv, said she was voting for Netanyahu because of his experience in navigating the country through difficult seasons. Eisenkot, who joined Netanyahu’s war cabinet after Oct. 7, has said he began to disagree with the prosecution of the war three months in and saw a deep dysfunction in decision-making. Netanyahu has called him soft on Iran.
(Update this article with the results when they are announced.)
Information for this report was provided by France 24, NPR, CNN and Al Jazeera.