Final Israeli election results show neither Netanyahu nor his rival can immediately form government

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc won 53 Results released Thursday by election officials showed that seats in the 120-member Knesset, or Israeli parliament, are far below the 68 they controlled at their peak in the previous parliament.

The bloc supporting Netanyahu’s main rival, Gadi Eisenkot, won 48 seats in an extremely close election race, meaning neither secured the 61 seats needed to form a government.

The counting is complete, but the results must still be certified and submitted to President Isaac Herzog next Wednesday.

Herzog will then consult with party chairs and choose a candidate he believes has the best chance of forming a government.

Parties led by Israel’s Arab minority made historic progress, winning a total of 19 seats in a race in which Palestinians with Israeli citizenship went to the polls in record numbers on Tuesday, with many hoping to oust Netanyahu and far-right members of his coalition, including Bezalel Smotrich, his finance minister, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The two main blocs have ruled out the possibility of forming a government with the two main Arab parties, Ra’am and the Joint List. But their rise as potential kingmakers has highlighted the complex realities facing Israeli Palestinian nationals.

Ahead of the election, Netanyahu and others in his coalition amplified allegations of foreign interference in the election, referring Arab parties to the internal security service, the Shin Bet, to investigate allegations of Qatari intervention.

Qatar has denied the allegations. Mansour Abbas, the leader of Raam, said his party had “no connection” to such conduct and called for a thorough investigation. He also accused Netanyahu of a “campaign of incitement and delegitimization” against Arab citizens.

Dean Livne, acting director general of Israel’s Central Election Commission, said in a published letter sent to a lawmaker that there was “no basis for allegations of systematic violations of electoral integrity.”

Before the elections, Netanyahu and Eisenkot ruled out forming a government with Arab parties.

But Yair Golan, leader of the small left-wing Democrats, called for a government formed “in partnership” with Arab parties. “We must no longer accept Netanyahu’s racist division between Jewish and Arab votes,” he said on X on Wednesday.

The majority of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship are descendants of those who remained in what became Israel during the war that led to the country’s founding in 1948. At the time, hundreds of thousands more fled or were expelled from their homes.