Israeli election has no clear winner. Here’s what to know and what’s likely next

Israelis appear to have handed a rebuke to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in national elections, exit polls indicated. But what’s next is uncertain as there’s no clear winner and no obvious path to a governing majority.

The election was widely seen as a referendum on Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving prime minister, who gave a defiant speech to his supporters just after 3 am on Wednesday in Jerusalem.

His party, Likud, appears to have gotten the most votes. But the exit polls by major Israeli TV stations indicate that support for his religious-national coalition dropped significantly.

The exit polls suggested his opponents — led by Netanyahu’s chief rival, Gadi Eisenkot, who also rallied exuberant supporters in Tel Aviv early on Wednesday — could secure a solid majority in the next parliament. But whether those disparate parties, including Arab-led parties, can form a government is uncertain, and will likely take weeks of haggling or possibly new elections.

Here are some key points to know on Wednesday morning, hours after the polls closed in Israel.

Exit polls suggest no clear winner

In Israel, voters choose not individuals but parties. Since no party has ever captured a parliamentary majority on its own, party leaders must agree to come together in a governing coalition.

Exit polls indicated that Netanyahu's bloc of supporters won about 50-51 seats in parliament, while the bloc led by his main challenger, former military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, won 51-52. That would leave each side well below the 61 seats needed to form a government with a parliamentary majority.

The exit polls suggested that Arab-led parties captured the remaining 19 seats.

With just over a fifth of ballots counted, Israel’s Central Elections Committee reported 23.36 per cent of the vote went to Likud, the party led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and 15.74 per cent to Yashar, the party of his chief rival, former military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot. The count does not indicate how many seats each party will win in the parliament.

Arab parties could play a key role in next coalition

Final official results aren't expected until later this week and they may vary from the exit polls, which, like all surveys, are subject to potential error.

If the Arab parties do as well as the exit polls suggest, they could play a decisive role in selecting Israel's next prime minister.

In his election night speech, Netanyahu repeated his refusal to create a government relying on Arab parties. Eisenkot has signaled he is ready to work with them under certain conditions, but this could risk alienating some of his partners.

Campaigns gave short shrift to Palestinian issues

Israelis are largely opposed to a Palestinian state. No major candidate advocated a return to the long-moribund peace process.

Even Mansour Abbas, a Palestinian Arab politician who leads Ra’am, the first Arab-led party to join a governing coalition in 2021, centred his campaign on concerns about crime in Arab communities.

As exit polls were shown on a screen at an Abbas election night event in Sakhnin, an Arab city in northern Israel, supporters of the small Arab-led party Ra’am erupted in celebration.

Enduring impact of October 7 attacks reflected in election

This election was held against the background of the enduring trauma of the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, when militants killed 1200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 others, and the ensuing wars in Gaza and beyond.

The deadliest day in Israel’s history featured prominently in the campaigns. Israelis have focused on the security failures surrounding October 7 and the enormous burden on their society, rather than on the humanitarian situation in war-devastated Gaza.

Netanyahu has rejected an investigation into October 7 and blamed the army for the failures that day. His supporters say he led the country back from that difficult day and scored important achievements in wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

Netanyahu’s opponents said he should be held accountable for the security failures that occurred on his watch and have demanded a commission of inquiry.

High voter turnout throughout the day

The final update from Israel’s Central Elections Committee put voter turnout at 77.7 per cent of eligible voters by the time polls closed.

That’s the highest turnout at that hour since 1999, and just over seven percentage points higher than at the same time in the previous election in 2022. The elections saw high turnout all day, reflecting the high stakes of the election.

- Associated Press