JERUSALEM (AP) — 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.
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 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.
Here are some key points to know as the polls closed in Israel on Tuesday night.
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 18 seats.
Official results aren't expected until later this week.
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.
Both Netanyahu and some of Eisenkot's partners have said they will not join a government with Arab parties. Eisenkot has signaled he is ready to work with them under certain conditions, but this could risk alienating some of his partners.
Like all surveys, exit polls are subject to potential error and final results, expected in the coming days, may vary from the exit polls.
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, centered 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.
This election was held against the background of the enduring trauma of the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, when militants killed 1,200 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 Oct. 7 and the enormous burden on their society, rather than on the humanitarian situation in war-devastated Gaza.
Netanyahu has rejected an investigation into Oct. 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, and their strong showing signaled in the exit polls indicates the lingering deep divide.
The country has also been deeply divided by exemptions from military service granted to ultra-Orthodox males. These exemptions are especially contentious after three years of wars.
Netanyahu’s governing coalitions have long relied on ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties that have demanded these exemptions remain in place.
Netanyahu’s rival Eisenkot — who lost his son and two nephews to combat in Gaza — has vowed to end the de facto exemptions. He repeated that promise speaking to supporters in Tel Aviv early on Wednesday morning.
The exit polls, which also indicated a drop in support for ultra-Orthodox parties, signaled voter unhappiness over these exemptions.
The final update from Israel’s Central Elections Committee put voter turnout at 77.7% 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.
