Alarm bells for Netanyahu in Israel: The 61-seat calculation is deadlocked

Vote counting continues after the general elections in Israel. According to the partial results announced by the Central Election Commission as of 14.32, 85.6 percent of the ballot boxes were counted.

According to preliminary data, the bloc formed by parties supporting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wins 53 seats in parliament.

The anti-Netanyahu opposition bloc, led by the Yashar party led by Gadi Eisenkot, reaches 48 seats.

Arab parties formed by the Joint List and Ra'am parties won 19 seats in total.

NETANYAHU IS 8 SEATS BEHIND THE MAJORITY

The support of at least 61 MPs is required to form a government in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament with 120 seats.

According to current results, the pro-Netanyahu bloc is 8 seats behind the majority required to form a government.

The Netanyahu bloc, which was predicted to gain 56 seats in the previous stages of the vote counting, dropped to 53 seats as the counting progressed.

In contrast, the total number of seats of Arab parties increased from 15 to 19.

THREE PARTIES ARE BELOW THE ELECTION THRESHOLD

According to the partial results announced, three parties are below the election threshold of 3.25 percent.

Reserve Soldiers Party (Reservists): 2.6 percent

People of Israel Party (People of Israel): 1.6 percent

Haredi Public Party (Charedi Public): 0.2 percent

EYES ON THE SOLDIERS' VOTE

Israel's Central Election Commission stated that the announced results are not final and the seat distribution may change as the counting progresses.

The votes cast by the "double envelope" method in the country, including the votes cast by the soldiers, will be counted at a later stage.

In this context, in addition to the votes of soldiers, the votes of voters in prison, healthcare workers and personnel working in Israeli diplomatic missions abroad are also included.