The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has asked his followers to go vote en masse this Tuesday afternoon in view of the very high participation that is recorded in the localities where Palestinians with Israeli nationality live, and has suggested that the Arab parties "are stealing" the legislative elections. Participation in Israel reached its historical maximum at 4:00 p.m. with 56%: more than 3.2 million citizens have already cast their ballot in the first parliamentary elections after the attacks of October 7, 2023, in which some 1,200 Israelis died and 251 were kidnapped. Likud, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party, aspires to repeat the government formula alongside the religious supremacist right and ultra-Orthodox parties. Opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot has called on Israelis to go vote to bring about the change the country needs. “There is a wind of change in Israel,” he assured.
With four hours to go until the polls close in Israel, participation is so far at 55.7%, a record figure, according to the Central Electoral Commission, which has been carrying out these counts since 1973 and had not recorded such a high percentage until now. In total, 7.3 million Israelis can vote today to renew the 120 seats in Parliament, the Knesset. It is the first time that Israelis go to the polls after the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023 and the elections have become a kind of plebiscite for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has marked Israeli political life in the last 20 years.
“Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood are attacking polling stations and stealing the elections,” the head of government said in a message on his social networks. "If we don't go out to vote now, we will find ourselves with a government of Arab parties. Staying at home is prohibited! Every vote counts!" he added. The messages show the nervousness of the head of government, who, according to polls, will not be able to remain in office because he will not be able to forge alliances that will allow him to have the majority of deputies: 61 out of 120.
Along the same lines, the Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has admitted, after having access to the voting data of the Arab parties, that "they have reached an unprecedented level" and that the consequences for the right could be "dramatic." "It is an emergency for the right. Go out and vote now," the ultra minister, who aspires to remain part of the government coalition, wrote on his social networks.
The independent legal center Adalah denounced this Tuesday significant delays, shortages or lack of electoral ballots in Arabic in different localities with Palestinian populations in Israel, during the holding of the parliamentary elections. “Since this morning, the Adalah organization has received numerous reports from voters in Arab localities related to the slowdown or closure of voting centers,” this NGO that defends the rights of the Palestinian minority in Israel detailed in a statement.
The Israeli Police arrested this Tuesday a man who approached with a hidden knife Yair Golan, leader of the center-left opposition party The Democrats, who attributed the event to the “direct result of the poisonous machinery operated by [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his Qatari agents.” The suspect, a Jerusalem resident in his 20s, was detained and taken to the Lev Tel Aviv police station for questioning.
More than half a million settlers residing in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem will be able to vote in Israeli legislative elections. At the same time, Israel has decreed a closure of the West Bank since last Friday, when a Palestinian attack was carried out in which two Israeli soldiers and the two attackers, from the city of Hebron, died. The three million Palestinians in the West Bank have since then had very limited freedom of movement between cities and Israel decreed that the majority would not be able to cross military checkpoints and go to their jobs in Israel this Tuesday for security reasons.
