The arithmetic is now settled; the politics are not. Israel’s Central Elections Committee has finished counting the ballots from Tuesday’s vote, and nothing in the final tally breaks the deadlock. Benjamin Netanyahu’s camp holds 53 seats in the 120-member parliament and Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition alliance 48, leaving each well short of the 61 needed to govern alone.
The real story sits outside both camps. Parties backed mainly by Arab citizens of Israel won 19 seats between them, an unprecedented result: 11 for the Joint List and eight for Ra’am. Turnout among Arab voters was exceptionally high, and overall participation reached 77.9 percent. Yet Netanyahu and Eisenkot both promised during the campaign not to build a government that relies on the Arab lists. The one prominent exception is Yair Golan of the left-wing Democrats, who wants a coalition “in partnership” with them and has already sat down with Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas.
Likud remains the biggest single party with 27 seats. Eisenkot’s Yashar follows with 21 and the joint list of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid with 12. For Netanyahu the result is a sharp fall from the 68 seats his coalition commanded at its height in the outgoing Knesset.
Bargaining started before the last ballots were tallied. Netanyahu met his hard-right allies Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, while Eisenkot accused Likud of trying to cast doubt on the vote and promised early bills on universal military or civilian service and a state inquiry into the October 7 attack. Lapid asked supporters for patience, likening coalition building to a watchmaker fitting gears together.
Once certified, the figures land on the desk of the head of state, Isaac Herzog, next Wednesday. He will then consult party leaders and hand the mandate to whoever he judges most likely to succeed, and the new Knesset is due to be sworn in on November 10. If nobody can assemble a majority, Israelis could be heading back to the polls.
