Israel will hold parliamentary elections on Tuesday, marking the nation’s first nationwide vote since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks and the ensuing three years of war across the region.
Voters will decide all 120 seats in the Knesset in a race widely viewed as a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s prolonged tenure and security policies. Although 39 political parties are competing on the ballot, the contest has largely narrowed to a fierce clash between Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist coalition and a fractured opposition alliance led by former military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, CBS News and Al Jazeera reported.
A deeply divided electorate
Recent opinion surveys indicate a razor-thin contest. According to projections cited by Al Jazeera, the opposition alliance holds a narrow lead with about 52 projected seats, while Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc follows closely with around 50 seats. Because Israeli law requires an absolute majority of at least 61 seats to form a government, neither bloc is expected to win outright, leaving the balance of power unsettled.
Two Arab-led parties, Ra’am and the Joint List, are projected to capture approximately 13 seats, Al Jazeera reported. While Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas has suggested openness to joining an opposition government, major opposition figures, including Eisenkot, have largely ruled out such a formal coalition.
Tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, demanding government accountability for the security failures surrounding the 2023 incursions, CBS News reported. The prime minister also continues to face an ongoing corruption trial and widespread criticism over controversial judicial changes.
At the same time, tens of thousands of citizens residing overseas are expected to return home to cast ballots, according to the AID Coalition, a U.S.-based advocacy group. Israeli law requires the vast majority of citizens to vote in person inside the country, Fortune reported. With more than 7.3 million registered voters and historical outcomes often decided by slender margins, returning expatriates could influence outcomes in key districts.
Campaigning under the shadow of conflict
The impending vote unfolds amid persistent violence across multiple fronts. On Sunday, Israeli strikes killed seven people and injured eight in the Gaza Strip, according to local hospital officials who spoke to Fortune. The military also instituted new employment bans and security restrictions across the occupied West Bank following a Friday attack in Hebron that left two Israeli soldiers dead.
Netanyahu’s campaign has sought to cast the contest in stark terms, framing the vote as an existential decision between his security posture and opposition concessions. Eisenkot, whose Yashar party leads opposition polling, left Netanyahu’s emergency war cabinet in 2024 after accusing the prime minister of delaying hostage agreements to appease far-right coalition partners.
Analysts caution, however, that an opposition victory would not necessarily transform Israeli military or diplomatic policy. Political analyst Dahlia Scheindlin told CBS News that Eisenkot is unlikely to significantly alter approaches to conflicts involving Gaza or Iran, though he pledges to form a government without far-right ultranationalists, launch a formal state commission of inquiry into Oct. 7, and mandate military service for ultra-Orthodox men.
Complex paths to a coalition
Under Israel’s proportional representation system, the formal voting will merely trigger weeks of intense negotiation. Should neither major bloc assemble 61 seats, options could include alternative power-sharing rotations, an emergency national unity administration, or outside parliamentary cooperation agreements, Al Jazeera reported.
Analysts note that if negotiations collapse into gridlock, the country could face another round of snap elections, allowing Netanyahu to remain in office as caretaker prime minister while the political impasse continues.
