![\"Ballot](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/4896.jpg\")
Ballot boxes are set up at a school in Tel Aviv. Photograph: Nir Keidar\/Anadolu\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
It was on Netanyahu\u2019s watch that Hamas<\/a> militants broke out from Gaza three years ago to kill nearly 1,200 people, the majority of them civilians, on the deadliest day in Israel\u2019s history. This election is widely seen as a referendum on Netanyahu\u2019s leadership since those attacks.<\/p>\n The IDF\u2019s globally condemned assault on Gaza, which has killed at least 75,000 people<\/a> and been deemed a genocide by a UN commission<\/a>, academics, legal scholars and Israeli and international rights groups, has left Israel a pariah on the world stage.<\/p>\n Three years of regional conflict followed the 7 October attacks, including this year\u2019s war on Iran, which sparked an ongoing global energy crisis and has killed thousands of people, mainly in Lebanon and Iran.<\/p>\n What is more, under Netanyahu\u2019s government there has been an unprecedented, aggressive surge of deadly extremist settler violence<\/a> to bolster Israeli control in the occupied West Bank, as settler militants and their political backers \u2013 who have propped up Netanyahu\u2019s government \u2013 exploited their seat at the cabinet table and expanded with impunity.<\/p>\n Indeed, settlement expansion has been a key feature of Netanyahu\u2019s re-election campaign. However, it is also a driving force behind Israel\u2019s growing international isolation, with many of its traditional allies condemning \u201csettler terrorists\u201d and announcing plans to impose sanctions.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a000.57 EDT<\/p>\n Key events<\/p>\n According to Israel\u2019s Hareetz newspaper<\/a>, United Arab List (Ra\u2019am), an Islamist party headed by Mansour Abbas, has filed a complaint to the Central Elections Committee, alleging that a systematic campaign has been launched to disrupt voting for the party.<\/p>\n In a statement, the party said police arrested several of its leading activists in southern Israel\u2019s Negev region before dawn with no clear justification, according to Hareetz.<\/p>\n The party also said there is a widespread shortage of its Arabic-language ballot slips in several areas, including the cities of Nazareth and Shfaram in northern Israel. We have not yet been able to independently verify these claims.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a005.09 EDT<\/p>\n About 15 million people live in areas under Israeli control. Just over 7 million Jewish Israelis and 1.7 million Palestinian citizens of Israel<\/a> live within the country\u2019s pre-1967 borders, known as the \u201cgreen line\u201d, and have full voting rights.<\/p>\n In the occupied West Bank, more than 500,000 Israeli settlers<\/a> can vote. They live among 3.1 million Palestinians who are subject to military rule and do not have the right to vote.<\/p>\n In occupied East Jerusalem more than 230,000 Israelis with voting rights live among 350,000 Palestinians who cannot vote.<\/p>\n Two million Palestinians in Gaza, who live under Israeli military occupation<\/a>, according to the international court of justice, also have no vote.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>How does the system work and when might we get results\/a new government? The Knesset, the Israeli parliament, has 120 seats, with lawmakers voted in through a system of proportional representation. No single party has ever claimed a majority of 61 seats, so Israel<\/a> has always been governed by coalitions.<\/p>\n When the results are in, the president invites the party with the largest number of seats to try to agree a governing coalition. Exit polls are released at 10pm Israeli time (8pm GMT), and the first indication of actual voting counts usually emerges in the early hours of the morning.<\/p>\n Getting full results could take much longer, with the outcome potentially hanging on the electoral fortunes of two small parties, which need to win 3.25% of the overall vote to take up seats in the Knesset. Polling puts both around this threshold. If they cross it, they each get four seats, which would have a significant impact on coalition building options.<\/p>\n Ofer Winter speaks during the National Youth Conference in Jerusalem on 11 October 2026. Photograph: Abir Sultan\/EPA<\/p>\n The far-right Amcha Yisrael is led by the former general Ofer Winter, who has pledged to back Netanyahu for prime minister if he gets into the Knesset. The Reservists is a rightwing Zionist party focused on ensuring universal conscription whose leaders sit between the two blocs.<\/p>\n They have ruled out joining any government supported by either the ultra-Orthodox \u2013 key Netanyahu allies \u2013 or Palestinian parties whose backing Gadi Eisenkot is likely to need. If it goes down to the wire, counting could take more than a day.<\/p>\n No single party has ever won a majority in the Knesset, the 120-member Israeli parliament. Photograph: Ilan Rosenberg\/ReutersShare<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a004.48 EDT<\/p>\n Palestinians with Israeli citizenship constitute about a fifth of the population but are consistently under-represented in the parliament.<\/p>\n Benjamin Netanyahu and most of his chief rivals have said they won\u2019t form a coalition with parties (broadly) representing Palestinian citizens of Israel – even if that means political gridlock.<\/p>\n But after the votes are counted these parties could hold a critical balance of power, as my colleagues Emma Graham-Harrison<\/a> and Quique Kierszenbaum<\/a> highlight in this story<\/a>. Here is an extract from their report:<\/p>\n Palestinian citizens of Israel are forecast to secure between 12 and 15 seats, divided between the Islamist Ra\u2019am and the Joint List alliance of three smaller parties, Hadash, Balad and Ta\u2019al.<\/p>\n Yousef Jabareen, leader of the Joint List political alliance, casts his ballot to vote at a polling station in the town of Umm al-Fahm. Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The mathematics of power are clear, even though most of the Jewish Israeli opposition has ruled out a coalition with Arab politicians, and Netanyahu and his allies have been doing everything they can to make such an alliance politically toxic.<\/p>\n There is recent precedent for breaking promises not to work with Palestinians, however. The Ra\u2019am leader, Mansour Abbas, in 2021 took his party into a historic coalition government with Naftali Bennett, now part of the opposition bloc, and Netanyahu himself had previously started coalition negotiations with Abbas.<\/p>\n Israeli lawmaker Mansour Abbas, leader of the Ra\u2019am party, casts his ballot alongside his daughter in Maghar, Israel. Photograph: Mahmoud Illean\/AP<\/p>\n One prospective voter, Mohammed, works at a hi-tech company, managing both Jewish and Arab employees, which he sees as a template for a different future for Israel.<\/p>\n Although disappointed that most Jewish Israeli opposition parties have ruled out a coalition with Palestinian parties, he understands the political logic, and he expects their position to shift once results are in.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of the day, everything is mathematics, right? One plus one is two. They cannot do anything without [those seats]. So they must do [some kind of deal] and they will do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a004.37 EDT<\/p>\n Who are Netanayhu’s main opponents in the general election?<\/p>\n A consistent majority of Israeli polls show prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s current coalition bloc with the ultra-Orthodox and the far right will fall below the threshold of 61 seats needed to form a government.<\/p>\n But even though there is a clear anti-Netanyahu majority, polls indicate that the Jewish Israeli opposition bloc will also fall short of the required seats, meaning weeks or even months of political wrangling may be in store as parties make deals and trade concessions.<\/p>\n So who are Netanyahu\u2019s leading rivals in the race?<\/p>\n As we have mentioned in a previous post<\/a>, the man leading the field to potentially replace Netanyahu, Gadi Eisenkot, is a former head of the Israeli military who formulated the notorious Dahiya doctrine<\/a> of using \u201cdisproportionate force\u201d to cause damage and destruction.<\/p>\n Naftali Bennett is a former prime minister and former chair of the settler council, who supports annexing much of the West Bank.<\/p>\n Avigdor Lieberman wants to dismantle the Palestinian Authority and replace it with an Israeli-Jordanian confederation (though apparently he did not consult the Jordanians about this plan<\/a>).<\/p>\n The Democrats, the only remaining political home for Israel\u2019s Zionist left, are led by Yair Golan, a former general and deputy head of Israel\u2019s military.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Across Israel, voting is now under way. Here are some of the latest images being sent to us over the newswires:<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the Jewish Power (Otzma Yehudit) party, votes in Kiryat Arba in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Photograph: Menahem Kahana\/ReutersA man registers to vote at a polling station in Umm al-Fahm in northern Israel. Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli\/AFP\/Getty ImagesPeople set up ballot boxes and voting booths at Al-Aqwas School in Umm al-Fahm. Photograph: Mostafa Alkharouf\/Anadolu\/Getty ImagesA supporter of the Yashar party, led by Gadi Eisenkot, arranges electoral banners outside a polling station in Jerusalem. Photograph: Jewel Samad\/AFP\/Getty ImagesVolunteers hang campaign posters outside a polling station, beneath a Democrats banner featuring Yair Golan and beside Likud posters depicting Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump. Photograph: David Goldman\/APShare<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a004.38 EDT<\/p>\n Tens of thousands of Israelis living abroad have flown in for the elections, according to Aid Coalition, a US-based nonprofit focused on strengthening Israel\u2019s democracy. Israeli law generally requires citizens to vote in person in the country, with narrow exceptions for diplomats and certain official emissaries abroad.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear what effect these voters might have, but many liberal Israelis who don\u2019t support prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu have left the country in recent years, suggesting that those returning to cast ballots may not support him.<\/p>\n Aid Coalition estimates that as many as 67,000 voters are returning to Israel. It says about half are flying in from the US, with others from Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n Israelis from San Francisco arrive at Ben Gurion International Airport in order to vote in the elections. Photograph: Amir Cohen\/Reuters<\/p>\n The Associated Press spoke to some Israelis planning to travel, who said they felt a sense of obligation to try to preserve Israel\u2019s democracy.<\/p>\n Yael Natra said she had never considered returning to vote in her home country\u2019s elections as she felt it wasn\u2019t right to cast a ballot in a place she no longer lived. However this year she plans to cast her ballot for parties not aligned with the current government led by Netanyahu.<\/p>\n double quotation markThe Israel that I grew up in is disappearing \u2026 If something won\u2019t change this time, I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to be.<\/p>\n Hadar Susskind said he wants a new Israeli government to reverse course in the West Bank and Gaza. He and four relatives who live in the US were flying back to \u201creaffirm Israel\u2019s democracy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n double quotation markThis government is digging the hole deeper every day \u2026 The first thing the new government needs to do is put the shovel down.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a003.35 EDT<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s president Isaac Herzog has voted in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n Herzog will play a crucial role in the days to come. After the final results are in, he will consult party leaders on who they want as prime minister and then invite the candidate \u2060he believes has the best chance of forming a government to try to form a coalition.<\/p>\n That nominee has up \u200bto 42 days to \u200bform a government.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s president Isaac Herzog votes with his wife at a polling station in Jerusalem. Photograph: Ronen Zvulun\/ReutersShare<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a002.49 EDT<\/p>\n Families bereaved in the 7 October attacks began election day with a protest at 6.29 am, the same time Hamas launched its attack just over three years ago.<\/p>\n They gathered in the Tel Aviv plaza that has become known as \u201chostages square\u201d, because it was the centre of demonstrations demanding the return of over 200 captives from Gaza.<\/p>\n Ruby Chen and Hagit Chen, parents of Itay Chen, an IDF solider killed during the 7 October attacks, speaks at the event in Tel Aviv. Photograph: Alexi J Rosenfeld\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Holding pictures of their loved ones, they observed a minute of silence, then called on voters to remember the losses and betrayals of that day as they choose the next government.<\/p>\n \u201cThree years after the massacre, our loved ones will not be voting today. Go out and vote \u2013 remember them at the ballot box. This is what these elections are about!\u201d the group said in a statement.<\/p>\n Einav Zangauker, the mother of Matan Zangauker, who was held hostage by Hamas, appears at an event encouraging Israelis to vote for change in \u2018hostage square\u2019 in Tel Aviv. Photograph: Alexi J Rosenfeld\/Getty Images<\/p>\n They are not explicitly backing any political party, but one of their key demands is a State Commission of Inquiry into the attacks.<\/p>\n Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has strongly resisted the prospect of an impartial probe, and it has become a rallying point for the opposition parties trying to unseat him.<\/p>\n Two days before the vote, relatives of the dead released a video<\/a> making the same demand.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>\u2018There\u2019s a lot of racism, a lot of hatred\u2019: Far right gains predicted as Israel heads to the polls Four decades ago, when the extremist rabbi Meir Kahane<\/a> won a single seat in Israel\u2019s Knesset, other legislators passed a law to prevent him running again, left the chamber when he rose to speak and worked together to block discussion of his ethnonationalist proposals.<\/p>\n These ranged from mass expulsions of Palestinians to apartheid provisions such as segregated beaches and the criminalisation of sex between Jews and gentiles.<\/p>\n This month, Kahane\u2019s political heirs may claim more Knesset seats in national elections than the remains of the once mighty Labor party, home of Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Golda Meir.<\/p>\n At an election rally this week, Israel\u2019s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, mixed calls for ethnic cleansing and jokes about starving Palestinian prisoners with a proud anecdote about his conviction in 1998 over bumper stickers that read \u201cRabbi Kahane was right\u201d.<\/p>\n Itamar Ben-Gvir leads right-wing counter-protesters outside Israel\u2019s supreme court earlier this month. Photograph: Mahmoud Illean\/AP<\/p>\n A poll for the Israel<\/a> Hayom newspaper, published on 16 October, forecast his Jewish Strength party would win nine seats in the 27 October election. The Democrats, successor to the Labor party led by former general Yair Golan, were predicted to claim eight seats.<\/p>\n Ben-Gvir\u2019s rise is one of the more extreme manifestations of a broad shift to the right among Jewish citizens of Israel. It is particularly pronounced among the young and will shape the country\u2019s next government, regardless of who becomes prime minister after closely fought elections.<\/p>\n More than 500,000 Israelis have reached voting age since the last election in 2022, and three-quarters of first-time Jewish voters define themselves as right or centre-right, a recent poll for Channel 12 television found (it did not survey<\/a> Palestinian citizens of Israel).<\/p>\n The generation voting for the first time came of age after the Oslo process collapsed, when the prospect of negotiating a political resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict seemed to be fading.<\/p>\n They were teenagers during the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people, the majority of them civilians. Militants took 251 living hostages and dead bodies to Gaza, leading to a two-year hostage crisis.<\/p>\n Erez Uzan, vice-chair of the Young Democrats, said:<\/p>\n double quotation markThere\u2019s a lot of people, especially young people, who think that there is no solving the conflict, that we\u2019ll always be at war. There\u2019s a lot of racism, a lot of hatred, but most of all, there\u2019s fear.<\/p>\n Bucking global trends, young Israelis are more rightwing than older generations and are likely to vote in a new Knesset with more rightwing members <\/a>than the current chamber, said Dahlia Scheindlin, a political analyst and public opinion researcher.<\/p>\n Supporters of Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel\u2019s national security minister, campaign on 14 October. Photograph: Ilia Yefimovich\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Consistently rightwing ultra-Orthodox and nationalist religious communities make up a growing proportion of Israel\u2019s Jewish population but still account for only around a quarter of the electorate, so demographics alone do not explain the growing age gap on political issues.<\/p>\n \u201cAll Israelis, and particularly younger people, have been living in a political environment where not only is the government rightwing but the general terms of debate are really populist and ultra-nationalist. That\u2019s all they know. They\u2019re socialised into it,\u201d Scheindlin said.<\/p>\n double quotation markThere\u2019s been a real downplaying of anything to do with democracy, universal values or human rights. Those are seen as weak, if they\u2019re discussed at all, possibly as bad as betrayal. And very few politicians talk about peace, concessions, negotiations, Palestinian self-determination, or even Palestinian wellbeing.<\/p>\n The far right is on the rise globally, but Israeli politics that \u201crevolve round constant conflict\u201d heighten the appeal of ethnonationalist messages, Uzan said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe grow up in fear, seeing war all around us \u2013 and that leads to a certain perspective. In the last 20 years, our leadership in the centre-left camp has avoided talking about security issues,\u201d Uzan said, adding they had ceded that ground to the right.<\/p>\n The rise of the far right and religious fundamentalism, combined with Netanyahu\u2019s assault on institutions protecting Israel\u2019s partial democracy (Palestinians living under Israeli military rule in the occupied West Bank do not have the rights of citizens), mean many Israelis on the centre and left see this vote as existential.<\/p>\n David Harel, the president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, says the country\u2019s current path leads towards a bleak future as a corrupt, impoverished pariah state, dominated by messianic fundamentalists maintaining a \u201cviolent, cruel occupation\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are already in \u2018stoppage time\u2019. If we lose this time, there will be no second chance. The country we love so dearly will breathe its last. Plain and simple!\u201d he told a rally in the northern city of Haifa.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a004.32 EDT<\/p>\n There are more than 12,000 polling station opening across the country. In Jerusalem, some voters were lined up before polls even opened at 7am, ready to cast their ballots.<\/p>\n Voters line up before a polling site in Jerusalem. Photograph: Ohad Zwigenberg\/APA worker prepares a polling station in the Palestinian-majority city of Umm al-Fahm, in northern Israel. Photograph: Ammar Awad\/ReutersA woman votes in the city of Umm al-Fahm. Photograph: Ammar Awad\/ReutersShare<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a004.32 EDT<\/p>\n Unpolished, anti-Bibi, but evasive on peace: who is the Israeli opposition candidate Gadi Eisenkot? He has been called the man who is everything that Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> is not. Gadi Eisenkot, a former general and the main opposition candidate in Israel\u2019s elections<\/a>, is unpolished where Netanyahu is slick.<\/p>\n To Israelis he is both menschy (decent) and schlumpy (unkempt), his crumpled appearance contrasting with Netanyahu\u2019s hair rinse, makeup and obsessive need to control his media depiction. In the Israeli commentator Anshel Pfeffer\u2019s framing, he is the anti-Bibi among a roster of wanna-Bibis.<\/p>\n And in an era of Israeli politics that has been defined by betrayals, dirty tricks and public and private smears, Eisenkot\u2019s brand is rectitude. He only entered politics four years ago, and the name of his party \u2013 Yashar \u2013 means \u201cstraight\u201d or \u201chonest\u201d.<\/p>\n But on key issues, an Israel under Eisenkot may not look very different<\/a>, as he has been non-committal on crucial issues \u2013 including the two-state solution and Israeli settlement of the occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n For many voters, Eisenkot\u2019s appeal is less about ideology than the vibe around him. Key to his appeal, said Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli pollster and political analyst, is his \u201cvery modest background\u201d. While Netanyahu is the son of a Polish-born academic, Eisenkot\u2019s family were Mizrahi Jews from Morocco. He joined the army as an infantryman, and worked his way through the ranks to become the Israeli military\u2019s chief of staff.<\/p>\n Gadi Eisenkot, former Israeli military chief of staff and leader of the centrist Yashar party delivers a statement ahead of the general election near the Israel-Gaza border on 15 October. Photograph: Ariel Schalit\/AP<\/p>\n But what precisely does Eisenkot believe in? On the domestic front, he is pushing for a full investigation of the intelligence failures that allowed Hamas\u2019s deadly 7 October 2023 attack. More divisive is his support for the end of the military draft exemption for the ultra-Orthodox, long a source of friction in Israeli society.<\/p>\n On the biggest issues, not least a two-state solution that would create a Palestinian state \u2013 he is ambiguous.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never said that the solution is two states for two peoples,\u201d Eisenkot said on the campaign trail. \u201cThere is a very deep religious-national conflict here, and anyone who thinks an agreement can be reached now is gravely mistaken.\u201d<\/p>\n On the broader issue of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Eisenkot is also evasive. He opposes the planned E1 settlement block<\/a> that is seen as a potential obstacle to any future Palestinian state, but he supports settlement in general.<\/p>\n Where Eisenkot separates himself from the current government, is over Netanyahu\u2019s decision to place the far-right, pro-settler minister Bezalel Smotrich<\/a> in charge of the occupied West Bank, where there has been a surge of settler violence<\/a>, prompting widespread international condemnation and sanctions. Eisenkot has said he would immediately \u201creverse\u201d that situation and put the army back in charge of the West Bank<\/a>.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, speaks near the Ma\u2019ale Adumim settlement on the West Bank. \u201cWhat Eisenkot and the rest are basically saying,\u201d said Prof Yossi Mekelberg of the Chatham House thinktank, \u201cis we\u2019ll be better CEOs. We\u2019ll manage the country better, not take it in a different direction \u2026 They are not really talking about the Palestinian issue.\u201d<\/p>\n Eisenkot is unequivocally not a dove in his views on the use of military force. As Israel\u2019s northern front commander during the 2006 second Lebanon war, he was the architect of the notorious <\/a>Dahiya doctrine<\/a>, promising that Israel would wield \u201cdisproportionate power \u2026 and cause immense damage and destruction\u201d \u2013 a policy<\/a> that would see its fullest expression in the current Gaza war.<\/p>\n On Gaza, he has been more of a military realist, insisting two years ago<\/a> that Israel was unlikely to win \u201ctotal victory\u201d over Hamas, and calling for a strategy that prioritised the lives of hostages still held by Hamas. His son Gal Meir Eisenkot, 25, died of his wounds in late 2023 after an operation in Gaza to recover the bodies of Israeli hostages.<\/p>\n But while observers say an Eisenkot administration would be likely to crack down on settler violence in the West Bank, they wonder if it would go much further.<\/p>\n Read Peter\u2019s full profile of Eisenkot here:<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a003.29 EDT<\/p>\n Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu\u2019s main challenger in Tuesday\u2019s elections, has already been out greeting voters at a polling station in Ofakim, in Israel\u2019s south.<\/p>\n Gadi Eisenkot visits a polling station in Ofakim. Photograph: Ariel Schalit\/AP<\/p>\n The former army chief of staff spent four decades rising through the ranks of Israel\u2019s military. He now leads the largest opposition party \u2013 Yashar.<\/p>\n Gadi Eisenkot greets voters. Photograph: Ariel Schalit\/AP<\/p>\n Ofakim was one of the communities that was attacked by Hamas on 7 October 2023. Eisenkot\u2019s visit was likely aimed at reminding voters of the security failures ahead of that attack, and of Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s refusal to launch a state commission of inquiry into them.<\/p>\n Eisenkot speaks with former hostage Gadi Moses in kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel. Photograph: Amir Cohen\/ReutersShare<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a001.59 EDT<\/p>\n Explainer: What you need to know about the most consequential election in Israel\u2019s history In Jerusalem<\/p>\n Israel<\/a> is holding its first election since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks, the deadliest day in the country\u2019s history, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people, the majority of them civilians.<\/p>\n Since then Israel has pursued a war of annihilation in Gaza, launched two inconclusive wars with Iran, and intensified a campaign of state-backed ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank<\/a>.<\/p>\n Domestically the coalition formed by Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> has taken aim at democratic institutions, including the supreme court. Many Israelis have described this election as the most consequential in their country\u2019s history.<\/p>\n Here, Emma runs through everything you need to know \u2013 from the key players and issues, to when we can expect the results:<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Polls open in elections for Israeli parliament<\/p>\n Hello and welcome to our coverage of the Israeli elections. Polls have opened in the first election since the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023, Israel\u2019s subsequent destruction of Gaza, and the launch of its war with the US against Iran.<\/p>\n Most polling shows prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s coalition will lose its majority in the 120-seat Knesset, but the opposition bloc will probably also fall short of the 61 seats needed to form a government.<\/p>\n For Netanyahu, 76, who has led the most far-right government in Israel\u2019s history, the stakes are both political and personal. He is on trial for corruption in three separate cases, despite interventions from Donald Trump, who called<\/a> for a pre-emptive pardon in the long-running saga and even wrote<\/a> to Israeli president Isaac Herzog on Netanyahu\u2019s behalf. The cases are ongoing.<\/p>\n Ballot boxes are set up at a school in Tel Aviv. Photograph: Nir Keidar\/Anadolu\/Getty Images<\/p>\n It was on Netanyahu\u2019s watch that Hamas<\/a> militants broke out from Gaza three years ago to kill nearly 1,200 people, the majority of them civilians, on the deadliest day in Israel\u2019s history. This election is widely seen as a referendum on Netanyahu\u2019s leadership since those attacks.<\/p>\n The IDF\u2019s globally condemned assault on Gaza, which has killed at least 75,000 people<\/a> and been deemed a genocide by a UN commission<\/a>, academics, legal scholars and Israeli and international rights groups, has left Israel a pariah on the world stage.<\/p>\n Three years of regional conflict followed the 7 October attacks, including this year\u2019s war on Iran, which sparked an ongoing global energy crisis and has killed thousands of people, mainly in Lebanon and Iran.<\/p>\n A man looks at the wreckage of an Iranian missile that landed near the West Bank city of Jericho in June. Photograph: Mahmoud Illean\/AP<\/p>\n What is more, under Netanyahu\u2019s government there has been an unprecedented, aggressive surge of deadly extremist settler violence<\/a> to bolster Israeli control in the occupied West Bank, as settler militants and their political backers \u2013 who have propped up Netanyahu\u2019s government \u2013 exploited their seat at the cabinet table and expanded with impunity.<\/p>\n Indeed, settlement expansion has been a key feature of Netanyahu\u2019s re-election campaign. However, it is also a driving force behind Israel\u2019s growing international isolation, with many of its traditional allies condemning \u201csettler terrorists\u201d and announcing plans to impose sanctions.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/7504.jpg\")
A man looks at the wreckage of an Iranian missile that landed near the West Bank city of Jericho in June. Photograph: Mahmoud Illean\/AP<\/p>\n![\"Emma](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Emma_Graham-Harrison,_L.png\")
Emma Graham-Harrison<\/p>\nEmma Graham-Harrison<\/p>\nEmma Graham-Harrison<\/p>\nEmma Graham-Harrison<\/p>\n![\"Peter](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Peter_Beaumont,_L.png\")
Peter Beaumont<\/p>\n
Photograph: Ronen Zvulun\/Reuters<\/p>\nEmma Graham-Harrison<\/p>\n