Israel election ends in deadlock as neither Netanyahu nor Eisenkot wins a majority

Israel's general election has produced no clear winner. Final results released by election officials on Thursday, October 29, gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing and religious bloc 53 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, and the bloc backing his main rival, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, 48.

Neither reached the 61 seats needed for a governing majority.

How the seats fell

Arab-led parties won a combined 19 seats, according to figures reported by Al Jazeera with more than 99 percent of ballots counted. That would normally make them kingmakers. But before the vote both Netanyahu and Eisenkot ruled out forming a government that relies on them.

In an earlier partial count, with about 85.6 percent of votes tallied, Netanyahu's Likud remained the largest single party with 26 seats, followed by Eisenkot's Yashar! with 21, Israeli news site Ynet reported.

The result is a sharp fall for Netanyahu's camp, which held as many as 68 seats at its peak in the previous parliament. It comes after the highest turnout since 1981 in an election widely seen as a verdict on the government's handling of the war in Gaza and its aftermath.

Disputes over the count

Israel's Central Elections Committee rejected claims of widespread irregularities. Its acting director general said there was "no basis for allegations of systematic violations of electoral integrity."

What happens now

Under Israeli law, the president consults every party that won seats and then asks the lawmaker seen as most likely to build a majority to try to form a coalition, with an initial 28 days to do so.

With both camps short, the options are limited. One side would need to win over parties from the other bloc, or a leader would need to reverse a pledge not to rely on Arab-led parties. A broad unity government is another possibility, though the bitterness of the campaign makes it harder.

If no one succeeds, Israel would return to the polls. That has happened before: the country held five elections between 2019 and 2022. In the meantime, Netanyahu remains in office at the head of a caretaker government.