Opposition blocs hold more votes as coalition arithmetic remains unsettled
In Tel Aviv, NPR reported no clear winner from Israel’s parliamentary election on Wednesday morning, with a majority of votes counted and Benjamin Netanyahu leading his main opposition rival, Gadi Eisenkot, in the official tally. Opposition groups collectively held more votes than Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc, including a significant showing by two Arab-led factions. NPR said the combined result indicated that Israelis had turned out in large numbers to express dissatisfaction with Netanyahu’s government.
Both candidates addressed supporters overnight Tuesday and hailed their early results somewhat prematurely, each suggesting their side had triumphed. Eisenkot, a center-right former military chief of staff who has promised more diplomacy and less extremism, said, “We made history! The public has voted for change.” Netanyahu told supporters, “The right-wing bloc has a clear, decisive majority among the Zionist public.”
The narrow contest left both sides facing the prospect of weeks of political gridlock. A winner would need a coalition of 61 lawmakers in the 120-seat Knesset, and the final results would depend on the math and negotiations among broader alliances. Major horse-trading has always been the case, and no party in Israel’s parliamentary system has ever won outright.
Arab voters make up about 20% of Israel’s population. The socially conservative United Arab List, also known as Raam, and the left-wing Joint List could become kingmakers, though Netanyahu, Eisenkot and their allies had resisted partnering with them.
According to election officials, voter turnout on Tuesday was more than 77%, the highest in more than two decades. Tens of thousands of expatriates flew in from abroad to cast ballots. It was Israel’s first election since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack and the war in Gaza.
Eisenkot’s Yashar party included figures from Israel’s political center and moderate right, and potential opposition partners ranged from the right and center to the liberal left. Eisenkot had pledged not to join a government led by Netanyahu.
Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats party, which was part of Eisenkot’s bloc, called on X for the bloc to form a coalition with the Arab parties. “We have no future here if we don’t stop being afraid. And if we don’t stop with the racism,” he said. NPR reported that Golan’s appeal could help the Eisenkot bloc win, although mistrust of Arab political leaders had persisted since Oct. 7.
Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, with almost two decades in office across multiple tenures, but Israelis remained divided over his leadership. NPR reported that many Israelis questioned his ability to keep them safe after the Hamas attack, which the outlet described as the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Nearly 1,200 people were killed when Hamas attacked army bases, residential communities and an outdoor music rave, and 251 people were taken hostage back to Gaza.
Israelis were also reacting to reports that their government had received repeated warnings from countries in the region that Hamas was planning a major assault on Israel. NPR reported that the Israeli military campaign had killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and left most of Gaza destroyed. The outlet also reported that Israel faced charges of genocide, while Netanyahu faced an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes.
NPR reported that Israel’s wars in Gaza and the wider region, along with its policies in the occupied West Bank, had badly strained its relations with many international governments. The outlet also said public support for Israel in the United States had plummeted, worrying many Israeli voters. NPR reported that many Israelis were “fed up with the world’s rebuke over the Gaza war” and that more than 67 percent of Israelis in a July 2025 poll said they were not very troubled by the suffering of people in Gaza. Netanyahu’s supporters said the wars he had led across the region, from Gaza to Lebanon to Iran, had restored Israel’s security.
At Netanyahu’s election-night party on Tuesday in Jerusalem, giant screens played Hollywood-style videos of soldiers marching, airstrikes blowing up buildings and other destruction. Some clips appeared to show massive explosions of villages in Lebanon, where Israeli destruction of civilian infrastructure has drawn condemnation from human rights groups as potential war crimes, which Netanyahu’s government denies.
The videos also repeatedly showed President Trump shaking hands with and endorsing Netanyahu. Trump and Netanyahu had discussed plans to potentially launch major attacks against Iran, which could take place after U.S. midterm elections. Trump urged Israeli voters to reelect Netanyahu to “finish the job that we started.”
NPR reported that Likud supporters at the event “struck a defiant tone.” When asked whether Israel had gone too far in the war in Gaza, 24-year-old Likud supporter Ori Hazan said: “We will keep fighting them, and this is now the ideology, this is the policy. You fight us, we will kill you, OK? That’s it.”
Election officials told NPR they expected to finish counting votes by Thursday afternoon, including hundreds of thousands of ballots from Israeli soldiers. Whichever candidate came out on top would receive the first chance to try to form a governing coalition, and the party would have six weeks to do that. Both blocs were expected to engage in major horse-trading to try to form a government.
If neither side managed to form a government, Netanyahu could remain caretaker prime minister, with a repeat election held next year. Kate Bartlett provided additional reporting for NPR.