The far-right Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, called on Thursday for the arrest of Arab party leaders, after their parties achieved record results in the legislative elections, based on unproven accusations of receiving foreign funding.
Ben Gvir wrote on the X platform, “The Israeli General Security Service (Shin Bet) must order, as of this morning, the arrest of the heads of Arab parties suspected of involvement in the Qatari funds case.”
Ben Gvir's statements come after allegations that have not yet been proven true that these parties received money from Qatar, the energy-rich Gulf country that has communication channels with the Hamas movement.
These parties may be able to play a decisive role in forming the government, after both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the opposition bloc failed to obtain a majority in the elections.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Wednesday that he hopes that the Israeli government that will be formed after the legislative elections will make a “radical change” and respect international law.
Turk said during a media briefing in New York, “Israel has obligations under international law, under international humanitarian law, and international human rights law, and it must respect them. I hope that the next government will do precisely that and bring about a radical change.”
He added, "Do not continue on the path of war, believing that you are above international law."
Earlier this week, Turk warned of the danger of "ethnic cleansing" in Hebron in the occupied West Bank, where the Israeli army launched a massive operation after the killing of two of its soldiers. He said in a statement on Monday that “collective punishment constitutes a serious violation of international law.”
After counting about 85 percent of the votes, the Likud Party (right) led by Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies obtained 54 seats, compared to 49 for the opposition camp led by Gadi Eisenkot. Neither camp obtained the 61 seats needed for a majority in Parliament.
A statement issued by the Likud Party, this evening, Wednesday, and reported by the Israeli channel "i24 News", stated that the electoral process witnessed serious violations and criminal violations in many polling stations, which included - according to its allegations - offering bribes, rigging votes, and practicing intimidation and violence against members of electoral committees, as well as the use of banned electronic programs to urge voters to vote.
Likud, led by outgoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, added that it had handed over hundreds of evidence and testimonies to the Israel Police, the General Security Service (Shin Bet), and the Central Elections Commission. In its evidence, the party reviewed what it said documented the presence of envelopes containing cash along with ballot cards for the “Unified Arab” list, in addition to cases of double voting, and a discrepancy between the number of envelopes and the number of voters in several centers.
The party called on the security and judicial services to deal seriously with the documents it submitted, and to immediately initiate an investigation that guarantees the integrity of the results and the democratic process.
Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition is ahead of the opposition bloc after more than 70% of the votes were counted, without obtaining a clear majority. The elections witnessed the highest turnout in decades. The elections seemed to a large extent to determine the Israelis’ position on Netanyahu, who is considered the longest serving prime minister in Israel’s history. He pushed the country strongly to the right, and fought a series of wars, starting with the response in the Gaza Strip to the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and then against other parties in the region.
After the vote, both Netanyahu and his main rival, Gadi Eisenkot, pledged to form a government, although estimates did not show that either of them would obtain a parliamentary majority. After 70.7% of the votes were counted, the results showed that Netanyahu's team won 54 seats out of 120 seats in the Knesset. In contrast, the opposition coalition led by Eisenkot won 47 seats, while the Arab parties in Israel that did not fall within either camp won 18 seats. But these results are partial, not final, and are subject to change as vote counting continues.
Updated results of opinion polls as voters exited the polls in Israel showed that the elections would not appear to produce a clear winner, with the results of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition converging with the opposition coalition led by Gadi Eisenkot, to whom previous poll results had given him a slight lead, in the elections that took place on Tuesday (October 27, 2026).
The results of the three main television channels showed that Channels 11 and 13 gave each coalition 51 seats, a number that is not enough for either of them to achieve a majority, while Channel 12 gave preference to Netanyahu’s bloc over the opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot.
According to the results of the polls, the two Arab lists together will obtain between 17 and 18 seats, compared to ten seats in the previous elections in 2022. The polls gave the Joint List between 10 and 11 seats, compared to 7 seats for the Unified Arab List (Ra’em).
The Israeli Central Elections Commission announced that by one o'clock on Wednesday morning local time, votes had been counted in 78 polling stations out of more than 10,000 centers.
The committee said that the official results will be updated regularly throughout the night via its website and the interactive results map, while vote counting, data processing and verification continue, according to the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper website.
Voter opinion polls showed that the coalition supporting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will win 50 seats out of 120 seats in the Israeli Parliament (Knesset), including 24 or 25 seats for the Likud Party led by Netanyahu.
According to opinion polls conducted by major television networks when voters leave the polling stations, Eisenkot's camp will get 53 seats, while the centrist Yashar Party, led by former Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, came in second place with 21 seats. Together, the two Arab lists obtain between 17 and 18 seats in Parliament, compared to ten seats in the previous elections in 2022.
Thus, according to opinion polls, the Israeli elections do not appear to produce a clear winner, and they expected that neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his main competitor, Gadi Eisenkot, would obtain a majority in the Knesset, which consists of 120 seats.
The opposition coalition (Ainscott camp) consists of:
Yashar Party, a centrist party, is led by Gadi Eisenkot. “Biyahad” (Together), center-right, led by Naftali Bennett, and “Democrats”, left-wing, led by Yair Golan. “Israel Our Home” is a secular right-wing party led by Avigdor Lieberman.
Netanyahu's coalition consists of:
Likud, right-wing, led by Netanyahu; Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Force), extreme right-wing, led by Itamar Ben-Gvir; United Torah Judaism (Torah Judaism), Ashkenazi Haredim, led by Yaakov Asher; and Shas, Mizrahi Haredim (Sephardic), led by Aryeh Deri. “Religious Zionism” is an extreme right, led by Bezalel Smotrich.
Small parties may play the role of "kingmaker"
This electoral situation may favor Netanyahu, and allow the prime minister - who has been in office for a long time - to remain in power as head of a caretaker government, while the parties try to form a ruling coalition. It may take days before the final results emerge, and given the nature of the divided Israeli political system, small parties may play the role of “kingmaker” in these elections. No single party has ever held 61 seats in the Knesset, which makes the formation of coalitions common.
The elections witnessed a record turnout (74.3 percent), as Israelis cast their votes under conditions of war, to evaluate Netanyahu’s performance in the first elections held since the attacks of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.
On Tuesday evening, the Central Elections Commission in Israel rejected a request from the Likud Party led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to extend voting hours.
The committee said in a statement: “The broad participation nationwide in all segments of society reflects strong popular involvement in the democratic process, and no reason was identified to extend voting hours.”
The Yashar Party, headed by Eisenkot, Netanyahu's most prominent competitor, had opposed the extension, considering that "no exceptional incident has occurred that could justify approval of this request, which aims to pave the way for allegations questioning the integrity of the elections."
Most polling stations are scheduled to close at 10 pm local time (20:00 GMT).
High turnout is expected to increase the number of votes needed to cross the 3.25% electoral threshold required to enter the Israeli parliament (Knesset), putting smaller parties at risk of not receiving parliamentary representation.
According to opinion polls conducted last week, two parties are in danger of not crossing the electoral threshold: the “Amcha Israel” party, an extreme right-wing party led by former military commander Ofer Winter, and the “Reservists Party,” which has not announced its support for either of the two main camps.
The Israeli Central Elections Commission announced that the voter turnout rate in the parliamentary elections taking place today, Tuesday, reached 66.7 percent as of 6 p.m., up from 57.7 percent at the same time in the 2022 elections.
The Times of Israel newspaper quoted the committee as saying that this is the highest turnout rate to date in recorded history.
The committee had previously said that the participation rate at two o'clock in the afternoon (12:00 GMT) reached 44.9 percent, which is the highest for this time since the beginning of recording this data in 1973.
The Election Commission said polling stations will remain open after 10pm if people are waiting in line to cast their votes.
The Likud Party, led by Netanyahu, had asked the Central Elections Commission to extend voting hours, as part of its efforts to mobilize more voters, but the Yashar Party, headed by Eisenkot, “strongly” opposed this.
The high turnout threatens the chances of Netanyahu's camp
Observers expressed reluctance to speculate on the impact that a strong turnout might have on the result, as the high number of votes from Israelis of Palestinian origin may limit the gains of Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition, while increasing the possibility that any government formed to oust him would need the support of Arab parties, a possibility that raises widespread controversy among the leaders of the Jewish parties.
In a message to his supporters more than five hours after the opening of the polls, Netanyahu urged them to vote, saying that there was a high turnout among his opponents from the left and among Israelis of Arab origin, who constitute about a fifth of the population. He added, "We need our (turnout) to be large as well. You must all flock to the polling stations. This is a fateful moment."
The head of the German-Israeli Association and Green Party politician Volker Beck said in a television interview on Election Day that he believed a leadership change could be in Israel's interest.
Beck added in an interview broadcast on the German channels RTL and NTV: “Change will be a good thing for Israel, because I believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has squandered a great deal of trust in recent years, whether in foreign or domestic policy.”
Beck held a seat in the German Parliament (Bundestag) for the Green Party for more than two decades, and was politically famous for his struggle for gay rights and his defense of an assertive Israeli foreign policy. Therefore, he is not usually known for his harsh criticism of Netanyahu or his government.
Beck said: “Although he (Netanyahu) made some right decisions and took some necessary steps, change is really needed,” adding that this would allow Israel to regain the support of the international community, at a time when Netanyahu has become a figure causing more division on the global stage.
He also criticized the efforts of the government led by the Likud Party to reform the judicial system and change the nature of its influence in political life, considering that these steps would “fundamentally change the character of Israel, and must be stopped.”
Beck expressed his hope that the elections would produce a majority capable of working effectively, but he acknowledged that opinion polls predict a state of political stagnation. In this case, he said that he personally prefers the formation of a national unity government that includes all major political forces.
But he pointed out that "the division between the two camps is so deep that bringing them together would be an exceptional achievement by all standards." He repeated the same idea in an online post, saying that forming a national unity government “would be a good thing,” but adding that achieving that was “not very likely.”
The Likud Party, led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, announced on its channel on the Telegram platform that it had submitted a request to extend the opening hours of polling stations.
The post read: “Likud: We have submitted a request to extend voting hours!”
The party did not provide additional details, such as the duration of the extension it is requesting, or whether the request includes all polling stations in the country or only specific centers.
According to the Times of Israel, the ultra-Orthodox Shas party also joined the call for an extension, saying: “The parties are trying to prevent a situation in which citizens waiting in line are unable to cast their votes.”
On the other hand, the Yashar Party, the most prominent opposition party, refused to extend the vote, saying: “There was no exceptional incident that justified approval of this request, which aims to pave the way for allegations that challenge the integrity of the elections, and to continue the lies that Netanyahu has been promoting since this morning.”
Politicians from various factions are making intense efforts to mobilize voters, in light of expectations of close competition. The voting process has witnessed a high turnout so far, which has led to long queues forming in front of some polling stations.
Voting was originally scheduled to continue until late at night, with polling stations closing at 10 p.m. local time. However, voters waiting in line at closing time will be allowed to cast their ballot.
Gadi Eisenkot, the most prominent competitor of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, called on voters on Tuesday to topple what he described as the "worst government" in Israel's history, pledging to adopt a more responsible leadership style. Eisenkot said, after casting his vote at a polling station in the city of Holon, south of Tel Aviv: “The winds of change are blowing in Israel, and this change will begin at ten o’clock in the evening,” referring to the closing time of polling stations.
Eisenkot added: “We will not lead Israel through division and spreading fears, but rather through unity and true love,” stressing by saying: “We will prevail!”
Before election day, Israeli opinion polls had predicted a close competition between Netanyahu's conservative and right-wing camp and the opposition bloc led by Eisenkot, without either of them being able to achieve an absolute majority.
Eisenkot called on all Israeli citizens to vote and not give in to the heat or unrest, and to stick to their goal of "overthrowing the worst government since the establishment of the state" tonight.
The parliamentary elections in Israel are, according to many, a referendum on the performance of Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest-serving prime minister in the country's history. But who is the Israeli opposition, and what are its most prominent trends?
The main opposition force is the so-called Change Bloc, a diverse coalition that includes center-right and some left-wing parties, led by the newly founded Yashar movement and its leader, Gadi Eisenkot.
Eisenkot is a relative newcomer to the Israeli political scene. He is the son of immigrants from Morocco. He rose in the military establishment until he assumed the position of Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army between 2015 and 2019.
Eisenkot presents himself as the opposite of Netanyahu on the personal level, as he appears as a man close to the people and unassuming, in contrast to the prime minister who is concerned about his public image and tends toward control, according to observers.
Eisenkot focuses his campaign on accountability, political reform, and national unity, and he also directed sharp criticism of Netanyahu's leadership before and after the Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023.
But his political positions are not very different from Netanyahu's positions on a number of issues. Although he affirmed equal rights for all Israeli citizens, he has not clearly decided his position on the two-state solution since the October 7 attacks.
Eisenkot supports Israeli military operations, but believes that the government lacks a clear strategy, and calls for an independent investigation into the failures that preceded the attacks. His military record, as well as the killing of his son in the Gaza war, also strengthened his standing with a segment of voters.
Despite the ideological differences between the parties of his bloc, they agree on a main goal of removing Netanyahu from power.
