{"id":660545,"date":"2026-10-29T10:40:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T10:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/660545\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T10:40:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T10:40:15","slug":"israel-election-2026-with-93-of-votes-counted-bloc-balance-remains-unchanged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/660545\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Election 2026 | With 93% of Votes Counted, Bloc Balance Remains Unchanged"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-chromatic=\"ignore\" title=\"Defense Minister Israel Katz at the graduation ceremony for the 76th class of combat officers in Bahad 1, officers' training school, earlier this month. Credit:  Ilan Assayag\" alt=\"Defense Minister Israel Katz at the graduation ceremony for the 76th class of combat officers in Bahad 1, officers' training school, earlier this month.\" width=\"2400\" height=\"1605\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/876697-3.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" class=\"x1mraiob xxymvpz xt7dq6l x193iq5w xh8yej3 x1huxd7x\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><img data-chromatic=\"ignore\" title=\"Defense Minister Israel Katz at the graduation ceremony for the 76th class of combat officers in Bahad 1, officers' training school, earlier this month. Credit:  Ilan Assayag\" alt=\"Defense Minister Israel Katz at the graduation ceremony for the 76th class of combat officers in Bahad 1, officers' training school, earlier this month.\" width=\"2400\" height=\"1605\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/876697-3.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" class=\"x1mraiob xxymvpz xt7dq6l x193iq5w xh8yej3\" loading=\"lazy\"\/>Close<\/p>\n<p>Defense Minister Israel Katz at the graduation ceremony for the 76th class of combat officers in Bahad 1, officers&#8217; training school, earlier this month. Credit:  Ilan Assayag<\/p>\n<p>Defense Minister Israel Katz at the graduation ceremony for the 76th class of combat officers in Bahad 1, officers&#8217; training school, earlier this month. Credit:  Ilan Assayag<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"rich-text\" class=\"x13faqbe x12ds5z6 x1rrzvkg x1txrjqu x115k1yo x126s5kd x1az39ph x1qxhirb xhhm3bp xjplvm8 x1ur7pbh\">Defense Minister Israel Katz said the absentee votes cast by Israeli conscripts and reservists in &#8220;double envelopes&#8221; would serve as a major test of support for the security policy he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have pursued in recent years.<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"rich-text\" class=\"x13faqbe x12ds5z6 x1rrzvkg x1txrjqu x115k1yo x126s5kd x1az39ph x1qxhirb xhhm3bp xjplvm8 x1ur7pbh\">In a post on X, Katz said that soldiers were well placed to judge the government&#8217;s security policy, citing IDF operations in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon, as well as in the West Bank.<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"rich-text\" class=\"x13faqbe x12ds5z6 x1rrzvkg x1txrjqu x115k1yo x126s5kd x1az39ph x1qxhirb xhhm3bp xjplvm8 x1ur7pbh\">He said the troops understand the government&#8217;s push for military operations in Iran and Yemen, and the &#8220;shift in Israel&#8217;s security doctrine toward initiative, offense and decisive victory, rather than containment and diplomatic arrangements.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"rich-text\" class=\"x13faqbe x12ds5z6 x1rrzvkg x1txrjqu x115k1yo x126s5kd x1az39ph x1qxhirb xhhm3bp xjplvm8 x1ur7pbh\">Absentee votes are known as &#8220;double envelopes&#8221; because each vote is placed inside two envelopes. The inner envelope is anonymous, like a standard ballot envelope, while the outer envelope bears the voter&#8217;s personal information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Close Defense Minister Israel Katz at the graduation ceremony for the 76th class of combat officers in Bahad&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,58195,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-660545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-israel-elections-2026","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}