Likud leads Israel’s first exit polls as blocs fall short of majority

Israel’s first exit polls on Tuesday put Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud ahead of Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar, while leaving both main blocs short of a majority. Kan, Channel 12 and Channel 13 projected 50 seats for Netanyahu’s bloc and 52 to 53 for the opposition.

These are projections, not counted results. The three broadcasters gave the Arab parties 17 to 18 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, leaving coalition negotiations dependent on parties that campaigned against working together. Voting closed at 22:00 Israel time after turnout reached 74.3 percent by 20:00. Military operations in Gaza and Hebron continued through the vote.

Story in brief

• Turnout reached 74.3 percent by 20:00 Israel time, eight percentage points above the same hour in 2022. Voting closed at 22:00.
• Likud led the first exit polls at Kan, Channel 12, Channel 13 and i24NEWS. Neither main bloc reached 61 seats in those four projections; the opposition led Netanyahu’s bloc at the three main channels, while i24NEWS put his bloc ahead.
• At Kan, Channel 12 and Channel 13, the Joint List took 10 to 11 seats and Ra’am seven. i24NEWS projected nine for the Joint List and seven for Ra’am. Gadi Eisenkot has said he will not align himself with any Arab party. Mansour Abbas says Ra’am can ensure a government of change is formed.
• The Hebron operation ran through election day. Kan reported that the army chief recommended ending it and that Netanyahu refused. In Gaza, the ceasefire’s tolls stood on Monday at 1,559 killed on the health ministry’s count and 1,431 on the UN commission’s own count.
• The final tally is expected by October 30 and the official results are published on November 4. President Isaac Herzog then consults the parties and tasks a member, who initially has 28 days to form a government, with a possible extension of up to 14 days.

Turnout at a record pace

The committee reported turnout of 16.68 percent by 10:00 Israel time. At noon, 31.5 percent had voted, nearly 2.4 million people. By 14:00 the figure stood at 44.9 percent, six percentage points above the same hour in 2022. Nearly 56 percent had voted by 16:00. By 18:00 turnout stood at 66.7 percent, nine percentage points above 2022, and by 20:00 at 74.3 percent, eight percentage points above, with 5,449,277 ballots cast. Arab voters, whose turnout decides the weight of the two Arab lists, were voting in what Tibi called unprecedented numbers; local counts put Rahat at 37 percent by the afternoon, with Nazareth and Tayibe at 25 percent, and by 20:00 Arab48’s list of committee figures put Sakhnin at 83.5 percent, Kafr Qasim at 81.3 percent and Rahat at 79.8 percent.

Netanyahu alleged attempts to steal the election during voting. In a video message he called voting an emergency, said police had announced that three senior Likud campaign finance officers were caught with envelopes of cash in the south, and alleged that the left was trying to steal the election. The committee’s director general, Dean Livne, has said there is no evidence of widespread fraud in Israeli elections. Late in the day, Likud asked the committee to extend voting past 22:00. Eisenkot opposed the request, the committee refused it, and the polls closed on time. The one exception was Hebron, where stations due to close at 21:00 were held open to 22:00.

Bargaining map

The first exit-poll comparison put Likud first at Kan, Channel 12 and Channel 13. The separate i24NEWS projection also put Likud first, but gave Netanyahu’s bloc a larger total. Each row describes one broadcaster’s initial projection, not a range assembled into a hypothetical parliament.

Likud and Yashar are included in their respective bloc totals; they must not be added again. The three bloc columns total 120 in every row. None of these four initial projections gives either main bloc 61 seats. They do not include Channel 14’s exit poll, which was unavailable at this account’s first filing.

The final pre-election surveys had put Netanyahu’s bloc at 50 at the three main channels, 59 at i24NEWS and 62 at Channel 14. The first exit polls reversed Yashar’s lead over Likud in the three main channels’ final surveys. The Reservists and Ofer Winter’s People of Israel fell below the threshold in the four initial exit-poll projections.

The Arab lists could affect whether a government secures parliamentary support. Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas, took seven seats in each of the four initial projections; the Joint List comprises Hadash, Ta’al and Balad. Entering a coalition, supporting it from outside and abstaining on its formation are different choices. Eisenkot has stated his bar in terms: “I will not align myself with any Arab party,” citing among other issues their refusal to label Hamas a terrorist organisation. Reuters reports his refusal as one of partnership. The possibility of outside support remains a separate question. Abbas argues the arithmetic may yet move Eisenkot, and says his party can ensure the formation of a new government of change. The Joint List offers a preventive block, support from outside, including a vote for a state commission of inquiry into October 7, the inquiry Netanyahu has refused throughout.

Trump’s endorsement enters the bargaining as a condition, on Netanyahu’s own telling. He said on Sunday that Trump was prepared to act again to “finally” remove the Iranian threat, but only if Netanyahu remained in power. Eisenkot answered that Netanyahu was relying on “a campaign of fear-mongering, lies and threats”, and said he was confident Trump would work “in full cooperation with any leader chosen by the people.”

Operation that ran through the vote

The Hebron operation began on Friday after two soldiers were killed at a checkpoint and continued on election day. On Tuesday, Israeli troops fired a stun grenade to disperse Palestinians protesting against the operation in the city, and the military said the grenade was fired so that the operation could continue. The army has closed the West Bank’s land crossings for election day, and Palestinian workers have been barred since Sunday.

The displacement count stands at several figures, each at its own authority. The UN aid coordination office said more than 3,000 people had been evacuated by Israeli forces since Friday. Hebron’s municipality counted 3,189 displaced on Monday. The city’s deputy mayor counted 2,231 people from 373 families by Sunday. Defence Minister Israel Katz put the figure at about 2,000 and said the displaced would not return until the army had finished with all the Hamas issues in Hebron. Netanyahu and Katz have announced their intention to apply the Jenin refugee camp model to Hebron: forced evacuation of residents, searches of homes, confiscation of weapons and the bulldozing of roads. The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Türk, said the measures are punitive in nature and designed to instil fear, that collective punishment is a grave violation of international law, and that threats to empty and erase entire neighbourhoods raise serious concerns of ethnic cleansing. He called for all those displaced to be allowed to return home, and for Israel to ensure compensation and reparation for unlawful evictions and demolitions. The UN has also recorded more than 2,000 settler attacks causing casualties or property damage since the start of 2026, more than in any previous year.

Whether the operation should still be running is now a matter of record between the army and the prime minister. Kan reported that Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir told the leadership the operation’s objectives had been achieved, that there was no longer operational justification for continuing it, and that barring the evacuated families’ return raised a legal difficulty; Zamir recommended ending the operation, and Netanyahu refused. The army’s own Sunday statement said troops would carry out demolitions in the area and that soldiers had not located any weapons in their searches of the houses. The Kan account’s yield for some 500 structures searched was one rifle and a handgun. The reports give different weapons totals; the available accounts do not reconcile them.

War in Gaza on election day

Palestinian Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal told AFP that 11 people were killed and 50 wounded by Israeli fire and air strikes in the 24 hours to Monday. At a camp for displaced people in al-Mawasi, an air strike killed Hossam al-Zamli, 21, Tamer Abu Sneima, 24, and a seven-year-old girl; a fourth death at the camp was confirmed later. The Israeli military told AFP it was looking into the reports.

Two authorities reported different tolls since the October 2025 ceasefire. The Gaza health ministry’s figures, published Monday, stand at 1,559 killed and 5,608 wounded since the ceasefire, and 74,555 killed since October 2023. The UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry reported on Monday that Israel has continued to commit genocide in Gaza despite the ceasefire, on its own count of 1,431 people killed in that span, at least 300 of them children; it said Israeli forces have fortified the ceasefire line with at least nine new bases and expanded the area under their control from 53 percent to at least 60 percent. Israel dismissed the report as biased and part of a misinformation campaign. The ministry figures cited here were published on Monday; they are not a final election-day toll.

Iran file over the count

Channel 12 reported on Sunday that Zamir had resisted an unspecified Iran-related military instruction from Netanyahu and asked for a detailed discussion, legal guarantees and the political leadership’s signatures. Netanyahu called the report rubbish and denied any confrontation. CNN reported on Monday that Netanyahu had pressed Washington in recent days for joint action against Iran before the election and that Trump did not give a green light, with Zamir’s warning that a strike could force the election’s postponement among the factors Washington weighed. Netanyahu’s office called the CNN account fake news, and Katz denied that an attack had been planned before the election. Middle East Monitor reported on Tuesday that Channels 12 and 13 had carried the dispute further on Monday evening: Netanyahu was reported to have said in closed discussions that he would fire the chief of staff if he won the election. On Monday, Netanyahu cancelled a Likud meeting called to rally his lawmakers, citing security reasons, as Channel 12 reported. The White House’s latest line, given on Monday, is that the United States will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the midterm elections and that the blockade will remain in full force.

Opposition leaders accused Netanyahu of using the Iran dispute for electoral purposes. Yair Lapid wrote that Netanyahu wants to bring about an escalation with Iran just to postpone the election, and that the man has gone off the rails. Eisenkot posted: “Netanyahu, I’m watching you,” adding that the prime minister refuses to understand that Israel’s security is not a tool in a political game. Avigdor Liberman wrote to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara asking for a criminal investigation of Netanyahu for treason. Netanyahu, for his part, said on Channel 14 that Iran has renewed its nuclear programme, a claim carried here at his word in that interview. In Tehran on Tuesday, after the four-way security talks of Monday, National Security Council secretary Mohsen Rezaei called the talks “very good”, and Iran’s armed forces chief declared the Strait of Hormuz completely closed and under full Iranian control. The Houthis’ Monday claims against Saudi pumping stations and Riyadh airport still carry no Saudi confirmation. On Tuesday, the Houthis said they had hit Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura oil refinery with a ballistic missile and set it on fire. Saudi authorities did not confirm the strike. Bloomberg reported, through a person familiar with the matter, that a fire near the refinery’s terminal had been contained, and the Saudi-led coalition said it had intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles launched toward Riyadh.

What happens next

• The count now tests the exit polls. The elections committee expects its tally complete by Friday, October 30, and publishes the official results on Wednesday, November 4. In a picture this close, the seats near the 3.25 percent threshold and the double-envelope ballots counted at the Knesset are where the exit-poll picture can still move.
• President Herzog then consults the parties and tasks a member with forming a government. The initial mandate lasts 28 days and may be extended by up to 14 days. If no government is formed, the task passes or the country votes again, under a caretaker government in the meantime.
• The Hebron operation continues on the defence minister’s word until the army finishes its work there, against the army chief’s reported recommendation and the UN rights chief’s call for the displaced to be allowed home.
• US and Iranian decisions on the Tehran talks, the blockade and the Strait of Hormuz remain separate from the election tally.

Background: War and campaigning before Israel’s vote

বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report