Israel election ends with no majority for Netanyahu or opposition

Vote counting in Israel's election is complete, and no one has won. Neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc nor the opposition led by Gadi Eisenkot secured the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-member Knesset, Israeli media said, leaving the country facing days of coalition bargaining.

With more than 99 percent of Tuesday's ballots tallied, Netanyahu's bloc held 53 seats and Eisenkot's opposition bloc 48, the Israeli outlet Haaretz reported, according to Al Jazeera. Arab-led parties held a combined 19 seats. The New York Times reported the same split in its account of the final results. Africanews said roughly a half-million absentee ballots, from soldiers, diplomats, prisoners and hospital patients, were still being counted on Thursday but were not expected to change the picture.

The arithmetic leaves Eisenkot with a problem. The former military chief, who heads the Yashar party, has pledged not to partner with parties led by Palestinian citizens of Israel, Al Jazeera's correspondent Nour Odeh reported, yet his bloc cannot reach 61 without them. On Thursday he met former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Democrats chairman Yair Golan, the only opposition figure open to such a coalition. Golan also met Mansour Abbas of the United Arab List, projected to win eight seats, and wrote afterwards that "our responsibility is not to miss the opportunity for change and the salvation of Israel."

Netanyahu's Likud, meanwhile, has amplified claims that Arab-led parties "stole" the election, possibly with foreign help. Al Jazeera described the allegations as unsubstantiated and said they have been rejected. The head of the Central Elections Committee, Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, said he could not verify the claims but had asked the Shin Bet security agency to investigate, given their serious nature. Eisenkot accused Netanyahu of trying to delegitimise the result. "The days of Netanyahu using state institutions against Israeli interests for his personal needs are over," he said in a video on X.

Tuesday's vote was the first since the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023 and the war in Gaza that followed, and was widely cast as a referendum on Netanyahu's long premiership. Africanews reported that many Israelis voted with security foremost in mind, but that the country's international standing was also at stake after widespread criticism of its conduct in Gaza and growing settler violence in the occupied West Bank.

What happens next is procedural but decisive. Results will be certified by Wednesday, and Israel's president will then task someone, traditionally but not necessarily the leader of the largest party, with forming a government. If repeated attempts fail, Israelis will be back at the polls early next year. Until then, voters and party leaders alike are waiting on the same question: whether anyone can find the seats to govern.