Israel Election: Voters Cast Ballots for 26th Knesset

Polling stations opened across Israel on Tuesday morning for an Israel election that will decide the makeup of the 26th Knesset, with more than 7.3 million people eligible to cast ballots in the first general vote since the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023. Voting began at 7 a.m. local time, according to the Central Elections Committee, and stations are scheduled to close at 10 p.m., when television channels will publish exit polls.

The ballot pits Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party against a challenge led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot and his Yashar party, with former prime minister Naftali Bennett and his Together alliance also in contention. Neither camp entered voting day with a clear path to a governing majority, and the outcome is expected to turn on smaller parties and on turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel.

President Isaac Herzog and his wife Michal were among the early voters, according to local media reports. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir also cast his ballot in the morning. Eisenkot began his day at Kibbutz Nir Oz, a community near the Gaza border that was hit hard in the October attacks, alongside former hostage Gadi Mozes, who spent 482 days in Hamas captivity. Eisenkot told reporters there that the government had avoided responsibility for the security failures of that day, saying: "If anyone in the government had even a shred of responsibility, they would have started their morning here, in the Gaza border communities."

Families of victims and hostages from the October attacks held protests at several locations around the country on Tuesday, urging voters to hold those in power to account.

How voting day works

Israelis vote for party lists rather than directly for a prime minister, and seats in the 120-member parliament are allocated in proportion to each party's share of the vote. A total of 37 parties and electoral lists are competing, and a party must clear a 3.25 percent threshold to enter the Knesset. A governing coalition needs the support of at least 61 members.

More than twelve thousand polling stations are open nationwide, with around eighteen thousand ballot boxes and about one hundred thousand election workers deployed to run the vote, according to the Central Elections Committee. The committee said 4,218 Israelis voted early at polling stations set up at diplomatic missions abroad in mid-October, a turnout of 86.7 percent of eligible overseas voters.

The vote is the first general election since the war in Gaza began, and the campaign has been fought over security, the cost of living, and the conscription of ultra-Orthodox men, an issue that helped bring down the previous parliament. The Knesset voted to dissolve itself in July, setting up Tuesday's vote.

What the final polls showed

Israeli law bars publication of new polls in the days before voting, so the surveys released on Friday were the last public read on the race. According to The Times of Israel, they showed continued gridlock, with neither the current coalition nor the opposition camp able to reach a majority on their own.

One television poll, from Channel 12, gave Yashar 23 seats, Likud 21 and Bennett's Together list 15, according to Anadolu Agency. That survey put Netanyahu's bloc at 50 seats and the opposition camp at 52. Haaretz reported that all three main television polls had Eisenkot's bloc ahead by a margin of two to six seats, while an i24NEWS survey gave Likud the lead as the largest single party.

Prediction markets told a similar story. Traders on Kalshi put Eisenkot ahead of Netanyahu as the likeliest next prime minister, according to the platform's market page published on Monday. Those figures reflect traders' expectations, not voter support, and they are not a projection of the result.

What happens after the polls close

Vote counting begins once stations close, and preliminary results are expected overnight. The Central Elections Committee has said official results are scheduled to be announced by November 4.

Once the results are final, the president consults party leaders and asks one candidate to try to form a government. That candidate is given 28 days to assemble a coalition, with a possible extension, and if the attempt fails the mandate passes to another candidate. If no government can be formed, Israel could face yet another election.

Turnout will be watched closely. In past elections, high turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel has shifted the balance between the blocs, and Arab parties are forecast to hold enough seats to matter in coalition talks. The leaders of the Joint List, headed by Yousef Jabareen, and the United Arab List, led by Mansour Abbas, are both seeking a place in the next parliament.

For Netanyahu, the vote is a test of his long hold on power after three years of war and political turmoil. For Eisenkot, who built Yashar only a year ago, it is a chance to turn a polling lead into a mandate. Sources: ABNA, All Israel News.