JERUSALEM — Israelis streamed to polling places Tuesday in the country’s first national election since the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, with early turnout running at its strongest level in more than four decades.
The vote is widely viewed as a verdict on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 77, who leads Likud and is trying to extend his run as the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s history. Polls released Friday showed him nearly even with Gadi Eisenkot, 66, a former military chief of staff who heads the new centrist Yashar party.
Eisenkot anchors an opposition grouping that includes former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who shares a combined slate with fellow ex-premier Yair Lapid, as well as Avigdor Lieberman and Yair Golan. The parties disagree on plenty but share the aim of removing Netanyahu, who would need to rebuild his alliance with far-right and ultra-Orthodox partners to stay in office.
Math decides the outcome. The Knesset has 120 seats filled by nationwide proportional representation, a party must clear 3.25% of the vote to win any, and a governing coalition needs 61. No party in Israel has ever won a majority on its own, and pre-election surveys showed neither bloc on track to get there.
Security has dominated the campaign, with opposition parties pressing for an independent inquiry into the failures before the 2023 attacks, which killed nearly 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Several parties also raised complaints about irregularities at polling stations Tuesday, though the Central Elections Committee said it found no sign of systematic ballot tampering.
Exit projections are expected after polls close, but official results are not scheduled until Nov. 4. After that, the president has seven days to pick a lawmaker to try to form a government, which must then win a confidence vote, and a deadlock could send the country back to the polls.
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