Exit Polls Leave Israeli Coalition Talks Unresolved

Israeli voters delivered an inconclusive result on Tuesday, with exit polls from major television stations indicating neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's political bloc nor that of former military chief Gadi Eisenkot secured the 61 seats required for a parliamentary majority. The outcome points to protracted coalition negotiations among the roughly dozen parties expected to win seats in the 120-member Knesset.

The vote functioned as a verdict on Netanyahu's conduct of the wars that followed the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023. Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, framed the final stretch of voting as a "war for our home" and urged supporters to recruit relatives and neighbors to cast ballots, saying his right-wing coalition could lose control of government if turnout lagged. Eisenkot, whose son and two nephews died in the war in Gaza, campaigned on ending the military draft exemption for ultra-Orthodox men and asked voters to choose "enlistment over draft evasion."

Turnout reached 74.3% of eligible voters by 8 p.m. local time, the Central Elections Committee reported, eight percentage points above the same hour in 2022 and the highest recorded at that point since 1988. Ofer Kenig, a research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, said increases in liberal strongholds and Arab-majority villages could weaken Netanyahu's coalition. "The picture right now is looking encouraging for the bloc of change," Kenig said, while noting Netanyahu has pulled off late reversals before. Hanna Swaid, a former Knesset member, attributed record participation among Palestinian and Jewish citizens to four years of anger toward Netanyahu.

Netanyahu's Likud and other right-wing parties petitioned to extend voting past the 10 p.m. cutoff. The Central Elections Committee denied the request, saying the circumstances did not justify it and that voters already in line could still cast ballots. Eisenkot called the bid an attempt to build grounds for challenging the count, saying it was "intended to lay the groundwork for allegations challenging the integrity of the election."

At the Otzma Yehudit watch party in central Israel, attendees fell silent as exit polls projected six or seven seats for Public Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. The party and the Religious Zionist party together won 14 seats in the last election. "I have no words," said Ran Levy, a Ben-Gvir activist. "I hope they're wrong, exit polls always change, but I know you also have to be realistic."

No single party has ever won a 61-seat majority in the Knesset. Exit polls carry margins of error; preliminary results were expected within hours of the 10 p.m. close, with final tallies due in the following days.