Israeli elections: Netanyahu in the lead; the opposition has 49 seats with 77 per cent of the votes counted. Arab parties are making gains. The stock market is down

Uncertainty, political instability, ungovernability. Israeli voters wanted to send a clear message, calling for change one way or the other. Yesterday, so many people voted – a huge number of them. Yet the wake-up call was accompanied by a sense of bewilderment, with a scenario unfolding that raises even more doubts, at a time when, moreover, the spectre of a resumption of war with Iran looms large.

The exit polls released last night were wrong. With 76.26 per cent of the votes counted, the election results suggest one thing: Gadi Eisenkot, the leader of the opposition, did not win. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s ever-resilient Prime Minister, did not lose.

With 77 per cent of the votes counted, the Change Bloc has gained ground and now holds 49 seats. Netanyahu’s bloc remains at 54 seats. Eisenkot’s bloc has gained ground at the expense of the Arab parties, standing at 49 seats. The United List and Ra’am have 17 seats. Likud remains on 27 seats, whilst Yashar has increased its tally to 22. So far, over 10,000 polling stations have been counted, representing a total of 4,421,561 voters.

Even with a clear victory for Gadi Eisenkot and his coalition, it would have been difficult to begin to rid the country of Benjamin Netanyahu’s corrosive legacy. So, as the exit polls suggested last night, the task is now even more daunting. According to the projections – confirmed by trends throughout the night and as the votes were counted throughout the day – the Coalition for Change, which initially held the lead, now stands at 47 seats. Netanyahu’s governing coalition stands at 54. A total of 61 seats are needed to secure a majority and form a government.

Netanyahu’s Likud is also the largest party: 27 seats compared with 20 for Yashar, whilst Eisenkot’s political party has only 21. Polls during the election campaign had predicted the opposite. The counting of votes is nearing completion, but it is extremely unlikely that the distribution of votes will change.

“Anyone wishing to offer a substantial and genuine alternative to Netanyahu’s bloodthirsty government will have to talk to us in order to pave the way for the change that the Israeli people so ardently desire,” said the leader of the United List (which brings together three Arab parties) Yousef Jabareen, implying that any party aspiring to replace Benjamin Netanyahu’s government will have to engage in dialogue with his faction, given that the partial election results show that Arab-led parties could win an unprecedented 19 seats in the Knesset.

The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange is falling sharply in the wake of the Israeli election, amid fears of a political deadlock, with the benchmark TA-125 index down 1.7 per cent and the TA-35 blue-chip index losing 1.5 per cent. The shekel, too – according to Israeli media reports – is weakening, losing 1 per cent against the dollar “There is political uncertainty as investors await the final election results and, at present, there is no clear indication of the composition of the next government,” Ronen Menahem, chief market economist at Mizrahi Tefahot Bank, told The Times of Israel. (

In Israel, with 72 per cent of the votes counted, the partial results published by the Central Elections Committee allocate 54 seats to the bloc led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and 48 seats to the bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot of Yashar. The Arab parties, which are also opposed to Netanyahu, have secured 18 seats. A majority requires 61 seats. It is therefore clear that neither of the two main blocs has the majority needed to form a government without the support of the Arab-led parties.

At 10.03, with 72.4 per cent of the votes counted, the partial results published by the Central Elections Commission show the pro-Netanyahu bloc with 54 seats and the bloc led by Eisenkot with 48. The Arab parties now hold 18 seats after Ra’am gained two.

Further reading

The only certainty is that Netanyahu has not lost

28 October 2026

The latest election results from Israel: Netanyahu’s bloc has won 56 seats, with over 60 per cent of the votes counted.

With 60.2 per cent of the votes counted, Likud is in the lead with 28 seats and Eisenkot’s Yashar! holds 21; Netanyahu’s bloc stands at 56 seats, Eisenkot’s at 48 and the Arab parties at 16. The leader of the Democrats, Yair Golan, is calling for a government backed by the Arab parties, whilst the smaller parties are struggling to clear the electoral threshold.

The leader of the Israeli left-wing party, The Democrats, Yair Golan, has urged the coalition led by Gadi Eisenkot – of which he is a member – to form an alliance with the Arab parties to form a government, emphasising that this would secure a majority of seats in the Knesset. “Netanyahu has lost. I can count to 120. 65 is more than 55. That’s how Israeli democracy works. Full stop,” Golan wrote on X, referring to the seats the anti-Netanyahu coalition would secure by allying with the Joint List and Ra’am.

The number of seats won by the Joint List and Ra’am presents the bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot with a choice. This is according to MP Ofer Cassif of the Joint List, the coalition of Israeli-Arab parties comprising Hadash, Ta’al and Balad. Together with Ra’am, they hold 16 seats according to projections based on the vote count completed so far. “Further elections would be a gift to Netanyahu. The ball is in the court of the ‘change’ bloc,” he told Israeli Army Radio, as quoted by The Times of Israel. According to the latest figures, the bloc led by Netanyahu has 55 seats, the one led by Eisenkot has 49 and the Arab parties hold 16; this means that, in effect, the Prime Minister’s opponents have a total of 55 seats. However, many MPs from the opposition bloc have insisted that they will never sit in government alongside the Arab parties.

The United States has informed certain Arab Gulf states to prepare for a short and intense military campaign, to be carried out after the US mid-term elections: this is according to people with knowledge of the talks. This is reported by the Wall Street Journal. These communications, which took place via diplomatic and military channels, the newspaper adds, form part of a growing series of signs indicating that the United States and Israel are preparing to launch a new phase of intense military operations against Iran; an initiative that risks provoking a serious escalation, in the hope of weakening Tehran and pushing it towards negotiations. (

Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic has announced that the terrorist threat level has been raised to the highest level, namely ‘red alert’. “This entails stricter security checks and an increased police presence at sensitive sites, including infrastructure and places frequented by large crowds,” he said. Overnight, Serbian police shot and killed an attacker outside the Israeli embassy in Belgrade, after an officer had been targeted in what has been described as a “terrorist attack”.

Even with a clear victory for Gadi Eisenkot and his coalition, it would have been difficult to begin to rid the country of Benjamin Netanyahu’s corrosive legacy. So, as the exit polls suggested last night, the task is now even more daunting.

In the projection – which will be confirmed, refuted or amended by the vote count up until this morning and beyond – the Coalition for Change is in the lead: 52/53 to 50.

“From the exit polls, I’ve heard that (Netanyahu – ed.) is doing very well. I think my endorsement, when it came, helped him a great deal.” So said US President Donald Trump, responding to a question from journalists at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, after returning from two election rallies in Texas. “Actually, I’ve heard it went rather well,” said Trump, adding, however, that “it’s a bit early”. The US President said he had not yet spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the results. Ahead of the election, Trump had endorsed Netanyahu on two occasions.

With around half of the polling stations counted – 6,456 out of over 12,000 – Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party is in the lead with 571,627 votes, equivalent to 20.81 per cent. According to figures published by the Central Elections Committee for the 26th Knesset elections, Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party is in second place with 468,460 votes, or 17.06 per cent. The third-most-voted party is ‘Together’, led by Naftali Bennett, with 252,883 votes (9.21 per cent).