Exit polls suggest election deadlock as Netanyahu and Eisenkot neck and neck

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and rival Gadi Eisenkot made claims to lead Israel even as exit ​polls suggest no clear winner in Tuesday's general election, with the required 61-seat majority to form a government.

Two Israeli broadcasters projected that Eisenkot's Yashar party and three other Jewish opposition parties in his "Change Bloc" would win 51 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, as would Netanyahu's Likud party and its far-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish allies. A third broadcaster's poll gave Netanyahu a lead of three seats.

Much will depend on the role played by the two Arab parties, which were projected to win a record 18 or 19 seats.

The deadlock could work in Netanyahu's favor, leaving him in office as a caretaker prime minister during what are likely to be prolonged coalition negotiations or even until another election can be ​held.

Official results will start to be published overnight, but an estimated 600,000 absentee ballots cast mostly by military personnel — around 10% of the total number of votes — will not be fully counted until Thursday. Final results are expected on Thursday or Friday.

Voter turnout on Tuesday was the highest in decades. It stood at 77.7% when polls closed at 22:00 local time (20:00 GMT), which was the highest at that hour since 1999, the Central Elections Committee said.

Likud and several other right-wing parties asked for voting hours to be extended beyond 22:00 local time, a move many of their opponents saw as a sign of growing desperation.

The Central Elections Committee ultimately rejected their request, saying that "the current circumstances do not justify an extension" and that the high turnout "reflects strong public engagement in the democratic process".

Far-right religious parties led by Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich were projected to take a combined 13 seats within Netanyahu's bloc – with no major gains for either of them.

Arab parties outside the two main ​blocs could hold the balance of power. But Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party and a former military chief, has all but ruled out forming a government with ⁠them, complicating his path to power.

Israel's fragmented political system leaves smaller parties potential kingmakers ​in coalition negotiations that have run to weeks or months after past elections. If neither bloc can form a government, another vote may need to be held, something Eisenkot opposed given the high voter turnout.

Netanyahu called for the formation of “a strong, right-wing national government,” while Eisenkot said the public had voted against Netanyahu remaining prime minister and called on him to ‌retire from politics.

At the headquarters of Eisenkot's Yashar party in Tel Aviv, his supporters cheered and chanted "Bibi, go home!" after the initial exit polls published by public broadcaster Kan, Channel 12 and Channel 13 projected that his bloc would emerge as the biggest in the Knesset, with between 52 and 53 seats, compared to 50 seats for Netanyahu's governing coalition.

Eisenkot said they had "made history" and promised to "ensure that the people's decision is translated into a Zionist government: stable and good for all of Israel's citizens".

His ally in the Beyachad party, former prime minister Yair Lapid, said Netanyahu's bloc had suffered a "crushing defeat".

Netanyahu highlighted Israel's military successes and raised the prospect of renewed joint action with US President Donald Trump against Iran as he addressed party faithful after 3 a.m. (0100 GMT) at ​Likud election headquarters in Jerusalem.

"Israel faces a singular historical opportunity, together with our partner President Trump, to remove the existential threat of Iran once and for all. But ulterior motives must not divert us from this sacred mission," ​Netanyahu said.

Eisenkot earlier warned Netanyahu not to use Israel's security for political purposes.

“Netanyahu is a caretaker prime minister, without a mandate or the people's trust,” Eisenkot said, calling on the security establishment to “stand firm” against any attempt to put political interests ahead of Israel's security.

Yohanan Plesner, president ​of the Israel Democracy Institute, called the exit polls a major defeat for Netanyahu's coalition but cautioned that Eisenkot had not emerged as a clear winner and much could change as votes were counted.

If the exit ‌poll projections hold, ⁠Netanyahu's nationalist-religious coalition, which at its height held 68 seats, would fall far short of the 61 needed to govern, leaving him with no clear path to forming a government.

Eisenkot, 66, who lost a son and two nephews in the Gaza war, emerged as Netanyahu's strongest challenger, stressing his security credentials while positioning himself as a centrist domestically.

He entered politics only four years ago and joined Netanyahu's war cabinet after the 2023 Hamas attack, but quit eight months later, criticising the prime minister's leadership.

Eisenkot offers a break with Netanyahu's leadership and far-right allies, but not with the hawkish approach to security that has become more entrenched since the 2023 Hamas attack. He opposes Palestinian statehood ​and says Hamas' military wing must be destroyed or ​dismantled.

Eisenkot says Israel's response — a war that has ⁠killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities — was a failure because Hamas remains in charge.

The headquarters of the Joint List, an alliance of several Arab parties, burst into whistles and applause when exit polls were released, on a historic night for turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel.

“We refuse the occupation and racism, and we ​will remain here,” said Faten Gattas, a candidate in the Joint List, in a speech at the alliance’s headquarters in Nazareth. Candidates hoped high Arab turnout would ​allow them to play a ⁠decisive role in blocking Netanyahu's coalition from returning to power.

Netanyahu's ally, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, said celebrations on the left were "premature", while National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir told supporters of his far-right Jewish Power party to pray that the final results would lead to a "full-on right-wing government".

Voters grappled with the trauma of Israel's deadliest day, when Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage, and the wars in Gaza and with Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iran that followed.

While Netanyahu was criticised for the country's biggest security failure, he argued that he had made Israel and the world safer by killing top leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.

The policies of Netanyahu's right-wing coalition have been divisive at ⁠home and deepened ​Israel's international isolation, but he has portrayed himself as the leader with the mettle to face down Israel's foes.

Netanyahu, 77, has served ​as prime minister for nearly 19 of the past 30 years and has repeatedly survived political crises. His opponents have managed to wrest the premiership from him only once since 2009, after four inconclusive elections in two years. Eighteen months later, he was back.