Israel election updates: Netanyahu set for comeback – Exit polls
Israelis brace for results of fifth round of elections since 2019 in hopes of breaking years of political impasse.
- For the fifth time since 2019, Israelis are voting in national elections, hoping to break the political deadlock that has paralysed the country for the past three and a half years. Voting began at 7am local time (05:00 GMT) and ended at 10pm.
- The foremost issue in Tuesday’s vote is once again former leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s fitness to serve amid corruption charges.
- For the fifth time since 2019, Israelis are voting in national elections, hoping to break the political deadlock that has paralysed the country for the past three and a half years. Voting began at 7am local time (05:00 GMT) and ended at 10pm.
- The foremost issue in Tuesday’s vote is once again former leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s fitness to serve amid corruption charges.
- His main rival is the man who helped remove him from power last year, centrist caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid.
- Final opinion polls published last week showed Netanyahu still short of the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset, opening the prospect of weeks of coalition wrangling and possibly new elections.
- After years of deadlock, voter exasperation may hurt turnout, but surging support for the ultranationalist Religious Zionism bloc and far-right co-leader Itamar Ben-Gvir has galvanised the campaign.
This live blog is now closed, thank you for joining us. These were the updates on Israel’s election on Tuesday, November 1:
Netanyahu poised for comeback in Israel election, exit polls show
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared well placed to return to power following Tuesday’s election after exit polls showed his right-wing bloc heading for a narrow majority lifted by a strong showing from his far-right allies.
Israel’s longest-serving premier, on trial over corruption charges, which he denies, was poised to take 61-62 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, according to Israeli television exit polls.
The early exit polls may differ from the final result of the election, which is not expected until later in the week. Still, the results pointed to a stronger-than-expected showing by the right.
Elections are more about ‘hatred’ than ‘concrete policies’: Analyst
Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said the more elections Israel holds, the “more cruel they become and the more separate from the Palestinians they become”.
“Israelis vote for a government that rules over 15 million people, half of those … cannot vote because they are Palestinians living on the other side of the Green Line,” Bishara said.
“These elections are … more about politics, about hatred … than they are about concrete policies that for example, would end the occupation of Palestine, that they would allow for genuine equal rights among Israelis and Palestinians,” he said.
“We see none of that.”
As of 7pm, 62.5 percent of Israelis voted
As of 7pm (17:00 GMT), 62.5 percent of eligible Israelis voted, which is 2 percent more than the last elections at the same hour.
Reporting by Orly Halpern in Lod.
Palestinians in Israeli city of Lod stream in to vote
Throughout the evening, Palestinian citizens of Israel continuously streamed in to vote in large numbers at the Al-Razi school in the mostly Arab neighbourhood of Ramat Eshkol in the city of Lod.
Some voters said they had not planned on voting, but eventually changed their mind.
Ekram Mansur, 50, lived in the neighbourhood for 15 years
“The rent is lower rent here and it’s close to my work. I decided to come and vote because I didn’t want my vote to go to the wind.
I believe in the agenda of the Hadash party. They believe in two states for two peoples and peace and a state for all its citizens. They are fighting to raise the minimum wage and all the things that are important to me as a citizen.”
Amir Amir, 29
“I wasn’t going to vote. I thought there’s no point. The Arab MKs [members of the Israeli parliament] don’t do anything. Then I thought about [anti-Arab extremist politician Itamar] Ben Gvir, and I decided to come vote so that Ben Gvir won’t be minister of public security.
If he is, there will be a third world war. He will bring the end of democracy, and he’ll make a war on Al-Aqsa, and afterward, the world won’t be silent. He’ll make a blood bath.”
Reporting by Orly Halpern in Lod.
Competing blocs remain ‘stubbornly tied’, analyst says
Dahlia Scheindlin, a political analyst, said that while a high turnout has been reported, it might not necessarily mean the end of political deadlock.
“It’s not that Israelis are happy about [another round of elections] … Of course, they want to end the uncertainty,” Scheindlin told Al Jazeera. “However, it’s not exactly logical because everybody voting simply reinforces the fact that everyone is divided.
“And we’ve seen in surveys from the very beginning of this election campaign until now [that] the blocs remain stubbornly tied,” she said.
Outcome of vote ‘doesn’t matter’ to most Palestinians, Fatah spokesman says
Jamal Nazzal, a Fatah spokesman in Europe, said the vote would matter if the political scene in Israel were to be divided between “good and evil. Namely, pro-occupation and anti-occupation”.
However, the two major camps in Israel have “one common denominator, which is they are both for the project of colonialism in Palestine”, Nazzal told Al Jazeera.
“I do not see the difference between the two camps headed by Yair Lapid or Netanyahu,” Nazzal said. “Actually, they both compete in terms of who is more racist towards the indigenous Arab population within Israel itself, and who is more extreme in terms of maintaining the occupation.
“We have seen a rise in Israeli violence and terrorism against Palestinians, so nobody can say that the Yair Lapid government is actually moderate because it has more blood on its hands within a short span of time than its predecessors,” he added.
“So, the outcome doesn’t matter for most Palestinians.”
Likud party may come out with more seats: AJ correspondent
Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, reporting from Tel Aviv, said that according to the polls, “Likud will come out with a couple more seats … than the party of the interim prime minister, Yair Lapid”.
“But, then again, that doesn’t really matter because it’s all about coalition politics, about party building, about getting those crucial 61 seats,” Dekker said.
“If you look at the predictions, most analysts will tell you that they’re not too positive about the … Yair Lapid coalition getting a majority.
“But what is different this time around … is that Benjamin Netanyahu is not the prime minister,” she said.
“If he [Netanyahu] doesn’t manage to get the 61 seats … then you will have Yair Lapid remain as caretaker prime minister until another round of elections.”
The election is ‘all about Netanyahu’, analyst says
Gideon Rahat, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says the election is “all about Netanyahu”.
“Once again, it’s all about Netanyahu, … and it’s not only a personal issue, it’s an issue that has to do with the characteristics of Israeli democracy,” he told Al Jazeera.
David Horovitz, editor at the Times of Israel newspaper, noted that Netanyahu has been the leader of Likud “for so long, he’s really shaped the party and his image”.
“The party as well believes, with good reason I think, that they would do less well with somebody less at the helm,” Horovitz told Al Jazeera.
“If you feel like your party leader is actually reducing your chances of getting elected, you’ll ditch him right away,” Horovitz said.
Voter turnout as of 2pm local time highest since 1999
As of 2pm (12:00 GMT), 38.9 percent of eligible Israelis had voted – the highest voter turnout since 1999.
The Israeli Election Commission said 2,638,581 people had voted.
Police officers were stationed at all polling stations in Yarka, a Druze village in northern Israel, after three suspects tried to take envelopes, the Ynet news website reported.
Reporting by Orly Halpern.
Palestinians in East Jerusalem say no vote will help them
At a supermarket on a tree-lined street in the Baqaa neighbourhood in West Jerusalem, Palestinian employees said that they even if they could, they wouldn’t vote in the Israeli elections.
“It won’t help us,” said one young man, who asked not to give his name. “This country is racist. So leaders that we might vote for won’t do anything for us anyway.“
In 1980, Israel annexed East Jerusalem, which it had seized in 1967 along with the rest of the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip. Palestinians in East Jerusalem were given residency rights and carry blue-coloured ID cards, meaning they can vote in municipal elections, but not in national ones.
“All I care about is feeding my family,” said a young Palestinian man from occupied East Jerusalem’s Issawiya neighbourhood, who prepared coffee at the bar of a nearby café. “What will change for me if I vote?”
A supermarket employee, who did not wish to disclose his name, said he also didn’t think it would make a difference to vote.
“I’m 40 years old. I don’t have a problem living with Jews,” he said. “I have three children, and when I want to take them to play outside, I have nowhere in my neighbourhood to take them.
“Those are small problems. We have big problems. I have a two-month-old daughter and the national insurance hasn’t given us the maternity grant or the monthly child allowance,” he said.
He also decries the use of collective punishment by Israeli forces against Jerusalem’s Palestinians.
“When a couple of kids throw stones, they don’t need to punish the whole village. The [Israeli forces] shoot tear gas and spray dirty water. Small children can’t breathe that gas. They can get ill or die. And our children get ill from that water.”
Reporting by Orly Halpern.
Election outcome may be ‘really consequential’: AJ correspondent
Al Jazeera’s Bernard Smith, reporting from West Jerusalem, said that while turnout is about 28 percent, “turnout in Palestinian-Israeli communities is only 12 percent”.
“It’s been a fairly truncated campaign period because we’ve had periods of holidays in the run-up to the elections. I think they only really got going in the last couple of weeks,” Smith said.
The general view was that people were “apathetic” because they’ve already had four elections, he said.
However, the outcome of this election can be “really consequential for the future of Israel”, Smith said. “You have the supporters of Benjamin Netanyahu who want him to win … and the opponents of Benjamin Netanyahu say if he wins … that will chip away at democracy.”
The lone left-wing voter in a right-wing Jerusalem area
Inside the polling station in the Katamonim neighbourhood in West Jerusalem, Uriel Abulof, 48, chuckled and said to his father, “I think I’m the only person voting left here.”
He voted for the liberal Zionist left-wing Meretz party.
“I would like to see our state democratic and Jewish – Jewish in the sense of being a homeland for the Jewish people, a place where Jewish culture can thrive,” he said. “At the same time, I’d like to see Israel as a democratic state, a liberal one.”
Israel’s controversial nation-state law defines Israel as being the nation-state of Jewish people, in what human rights organisations have criticised as a law that enshrines Jewish supremacy over Palestinian citizens.
It was that political view and his interest in what motivated his family to be right-wing that led him to his profession, an assistant professor of political science at Cornell University in the United States.
“I am from a very right-wing family. And if I cannot understand my family, how can I understand my people and their politics?” he asked.
Reporting by Orly Halpern in West Jerusalem
Palestinian Israelis divided over whether to vote
Umm al Fahm, Israel – Dozens of Palestinians are making their way to election centres spread out across Umm al-Fahm – one of the largest Arab towns inside Israel – to vote in Israel’s Knesset elections, while many others say they see no use in voting.
Voter turnout among Palestinians inside Israel is expected to be low this year, but some polls indicate the expected turnout may rise.
More than 40,000 Palestinians are eligible for voting in Umm al Fahm. Al Jazeera spoke to several people, including some who are voting, and others who are abstaining.
Alaa Jabareen, 25 years old, mother of a boy and a girl
“We voted for the United Arab List (Ra’am). The last period, they got us rights, they got budgets for Umm al Fahm, they fixed the roads, we are seeing this develop – the Arab town budgets are improving. We need this – we need this for our children. This leads us to vote. They also started giving us lands for building.
I think we have to stand together and vote. We have to be one hand. We are a critical part of the state. This state is ours, before it is theirs. This is our right, to vote.”
Taher Ali Younis Jabareen, former deputy head of Umm al Fahm municipality
“The political parties are trying to push people to vote. Most people who vote in Umm al Fahm will vote for Tajammu, or the Tibi-Odeh list, or the UAL.
I will not be voting this year. Unfortunately, the Arab parties have not proved themselves inside the Knesset. It’s a natural response for the people, who have many demands, not to vote.
The Knesset is more about preserving identity – its role is not to provide services. We go to the Knesset to tell them [Israelis] we are the original owners of this country, we are the rightful owners, we cannot be part of governments that have dealt so much injustice to our people, like some parties. This is shameful. We are not going to get to this stage where we beg for our dignity.”
Reporting by Al Jazeera’s Zena Tahhan
As of noon, 28.4 percent of Israelis voted
The highest voter turnout since 1999 has been registered, Israeli media reported.
As of 12pm (10:00 GMT), 28.4 percent of eligible Israelis voted, which is 3 percent more than the last elections at the same hour.
But that was not without some problems. Three men were arrested on suspicion of violently taking the whole pile of ballot envelopes from the polling station, the website Ynet Hebrew reported.
Reporting by Orly Halpern in West Jerusalem
‘Lapid sold us to Lebanon and Gantz sold us to the Palestinians’
The working-class Katamonim neighbourhood in Jerusalem is known for its loyalty to Benjamin Netanyahu.
Meir Chuna, a retired 70-year-old policeman, is a well-known figure in the neighbourhood and expressed his rejection of the candidates running against Netanyahu.
“Lapid sold us to Lebanon and Gantz sold us to the Palestinians,” he said. “Lapid gave [the Lebanese] 100 percent of the gas [in the recent maritime agreement] and what do we get?”
Chuna also said, without providing evidence, that Netanyahu’s opponents have given land away to Palestinians.
“That’s our land, the land of the Jewish state. The Holy One gave us this land to settle, the land of milk and honey. They [Palestinians] can’t come and say this is theirs,” he said. “So if we don’t keep voting for the right wing, [the centre and left wing] will sell us to the Arabs and put all the Jews in the sea.”
Reporting by Orly Halpern in West Jerusalem
Another Israeli election: Why aren’t Palestinians interested?
When on November 1, Israel holds its fifth election in less than four years, most of the world will see it as yet another sign of division in Israeli politics.
But while on the surface Israeli politics may appear plagued by instability, there has been remarkable political consensus on key issues in security, economic and foreign policy. True disunity, on the other hand, has reigned in the Palestinian community in Israel.
Indeed, the mood among us, Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, has been quite gloomy before the vote. According to a recent survey, no more than 39 percent of Palestinians who have the right to vote in Israel will show up at the polls.
Read more here.
Israel closes Gaza, West Bank crossings
The Israeli army shut two border crossings with the Gaza Strip, as part of a 24-hour closure imposed by Israel on the Palestinian territories during the Israeli election day.
The closure of the Karem Abu Salem and the Beit Hanoun crossings, known to Israelis as Kerem Shalom and Erez respectively in the Gaza Strip, are standard practice during Jewish holidays and election, in what the military says is a preventive measure.
All entry permits obtained by Palestinian workers are suspended during the closure.
The Israeli army said the border crossings would reopen “subject to a situational assessment”.
Profile: Who is far-right nationalist Itamar Ben-Gvir?
Until last year, Itamar Ben-Gvir was best known as a fringe Palestinian-hating religious far-right provocateur.
Now, as Israelis vote in parliamentary elections on Tuesday, he looks set to become a key player in the country’s fifth vote in less than four years.
A settler in Kiryat Araba, one of the most hardline settlements in the occupied West Bank (illegal under international law), Ben-Gvir has been convicted of incitement to racism, destroying property, possessing a “terror” organisation’s propaganda material and supporting a “terror” organisation – Meir Kahane’s outlawed Kach group, which he joined when he was 16.
Read more here.
Irregularities reported at polling stations
Voters have complained about missing ballots at several polling stations, according to reporter Orly Halpern.
At polling station 787 in Bat Yam, activists of the Arab-Jewish slate Hadash-Taal reported that there were no ballots for their voters. The election observer demanded to stop the voting until the problem was corrected, but the voting went on.
The ultra-nationalist far-right Religious Zionism slate claimed that its ballots were missing at various polling stations in the centre of the country, but the party did not report where Halpern said.
Likud ballots reportedly covered other parties’ ballots at three polling stations in Rehovot, Nahariyya, and Netanya.
Former leader Netanyahu votes in Israeli election
Israel’s former leader Benjamin Netanyahu has cast his ballot, as the right-wing politician eyes a return to power.
“I hope we will finish the day with a smile but it’s up to the people,” Netanyahu said as he voted in Jerusalem.
Why have there been five elections in less than four years?
For many Israelis casting their ballot in Tuesday’s elections will feel like the film Groundhog Day in which tedious events appear to repeat themselves endlessly.
The reason there have been so many elections since 2019 is the division within Israeli politics, and the inability of any side to keep together deeply divided coalitions.
Israel’s political system makes it extremely difficult for any one party to get a majority by itself and empowers smaller parties who tend to become kingmakers, with the ability to force larger parties to bend to their will to ensure their continued support.
The system is based on nationwide proportional representation, and the number of seats every electoral list receives in the Knesset is proportional to the number of people who voted for it.
The only limitation is the qualifying threshold, which is 3.25 percent. Although that is low compared with other proportional systems around the world, it may cause problems for the anti-Netanyahu coalition – three of the parties who oppose Netanyahu might not make it over the threshold, the equivalent of four seats, which would mean their votes are lost.
A look at the main contenders
Benjamin Netanyahu
After more than a year in opposition, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister seeks a return to power while on trial on charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes. His Likud party is projected to remain the largest one in the 120-seat Knesset but polls predict he may just fall short of getting the 61-seat majority.
Yair Lapid
Israel’s caretaker prime minister took office in June after the ruling coalition he cobbled together disintegrated. He has campaigned on his government’s accomplishments in its limited time in office, including the recent maritime border deal with Lebanon.
Polls predict that Lapid’s Yesh Atid party will be the second-largest party, after Likud. It remains unclear whether he will once again be able to unite disparate parties and form a coalition instead of Netanyahu.
Itamar Ben-Gvir
The co-leader of the Religious Zionism party has a long history of anti-Arab rhetoric – including convictions for incitement and supporting a “terrorist” group. His party is projected to balloon to the third-largest party in parliament.
Many of his party’s leaders are openly homophobic. His party is ardently pro-settlement in the occupied West Bank, taking an even harsher line towards Palestinians living there.
Ben-Gvir, the heir to the outlawed racist Kach party, has pledged support for Netanyahu – and has gone so far as to promise to annul the former prime minister’s trial and wants to be put in charge of the country’s police force.
Benny Gantz
Israel’s defence minister joined forces with other former Netanyahu allies – including Justice Minister Gideon Saar – after the break-up of the last government. He has campaigned on the issues of national security and preventing Netanyahu from returning to power.
Gantz’s Machane Mamlachti is projected to win about 10 seats in parliament, which would likely make it the fourth-largest one.
Israel’s farcical elections and fictional democracy: Opinion
“Israel’s powerful military and booming economy are undeniable facts, but its much-celebrated democracy is utter fiction,” writes Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara.
“Israel claims to be a Jewish and democratic state. In fact, it is neither. It boasts of being “the state of the Jewish people” everywhere, when less than half of the world’s Jews live in the country. Today, Israel rules more than 15 million people between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, half of whom are not Jews; most can’t vote in Israel.
Israel does not even recognise “Israeliness” as a nationality and rejects the liberal democratic concept of a “state of all its citizens”. Instead, the Jewish state recognises two strata of people: Jews who are entitled to full rights and Palestinians who must be content with fewer or no rights.”
Read more here.
Parties must resort to coalition building, no outright majority
According to pre-election polls, it is unlikely that supporters of opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu or his opponents will be able to command a large majority in the 120-seat parliament.
The current elections are the result of the collapse of the previous government and the dissolution of parliament in June after defections from the governing coalition made former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s position untenable.
That coalition, currently led by Yair Lapid, was formed by an unlikely combination of parties with conflicting views on everything from state and religion to the Israeli occupation and Palestinian statehood, LGBTQ rights, and economic policies.
So who will Netanyahu form a coalition with?
Read more here.
Israeli occupation not a concern for voters: AJ correspondent
The Israeli occupation of Palestinians is not a substantial talking point in this round of Israeli elections, Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker said.
“When it comes to Israeli elections, these issues [of occupation] aren’t really at the forefront,” she said, speaking from West Jerusalem.
“At the forefront is always security. This is something that always gets played very highly by all sides. Also, there’s been a soaring increase in the cost of living across the country which is something the Israelis are concerned about.”
Israelis are tired of voting for the fifth general election in under four years, Dekker added.But when it comes to the issue of occupation, “that is not something that is really on Israeli minds when they come to vote” she said.