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Israel Heads Into Its Most Consequential Election Since October 7
On October 27, 2026, Israel held its first legislative election since the October 7, 2023 attacks, in which Hamas-led militants launched air and ground attacks into southern Israel, resulting in more than 1,200 deaths and more than 250 people being abducted and taken as hostages. Many Israelis regard the election as the most consequential vote in their country’s recent history, as the government’s tenure has been marked by a series of turmoil — ranging from protests over proposed judicial reforms and the war in Gaza to controversy over Haredi military conscription.
The Central Elections Committee, the independent statutory body that manages elections for Israel’s legislative branch, the Knesset, reported that 77.7% of voters had cast their ballots as of Oct. 27, 2026, at 10 p.m. ET, the highest turnout since 1999. Notably, turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel, who account for roughly a fifth of the population, was about 80%, which was largely driven by a desire to replace the incumbent government. Much of this turnout was also buoyed by Israeli citizens living abroad flying home to vote, as Israeli law currently does not permit voting from abroad except for certain circumstances.
The Israeli election has major implications for the country’s future trajectory and reveals that deep fissures still exist within Israeli society. The debate regarding whether the Israeli government should continue subsidizing religious study for the ultra-Orthodox, whether the Haredi should be exempt from military service, and whether Israel should permit the expansion of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories all expose the deep religious, ethnic, and national fault lines that divide Israeli society.
No bloc is expected to win a majority of the seats, regardless of the final government composition. The Knesset has 120 seats, and the bloc led by Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu is expected to win just 53, eight seats short of a majority. The anti-Netanyahu bloc, led by former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Gadi Eisenkot, is on track to win just 48. Both blocs include only Jewish parties, as most parties in both camps have ruled out entering a coalition with Arab parties. The Arab bloc is expected to win an unprecedented 19 seats, up from 10 in the 2022 election. These results are partial and were last updated by the BBC as of Oct. 28, 2026, at 4 p.m. ET.
Unlike in the United States, Israel uses a closed-list party proportional representation system. This means Israelis typically vote for a party rather than an individual candidate. Parties include a list of candidates, and each list receives Knesset seats based on the proportion of votes it receives. In the last legislative election, Likud, the party Netanyahu leads, won 32 seats out of 120, roughly proportional to the 23.4% of votes it received. No party in Israeli history has won a majority of the vote or seats. Voters cannot pick and choose which candidate they want on the list, unlike in some other countries that use a similar voting system to Israel’s.
Parties running for office must also receive at least 3.25% of the vote to receive seat mandates. If they do not, regardless of how many votes they receive, they would not have representation in parliament. In the 2022 election, Meretz, an anti-Netanyahu left-wing party, lost all six Knesset seats after winning just 3.16% of the vote, shy of the 3.25% electoral threshold. Another difference is that Israel is a parliamentary system, instead of a presidential system like the U.S. This means that the head of state is not directly elected by the public, but is a member of the Knesset who is “first among equals” — a member of the government who leads the cabinet but is, in principle, one of its peers rather than an absolute ruler. Netanyahu is a member of the Knesset, but is ranked as the first candidate on the Likud list.
The election comes amidst a backdrop of successive political deadlocks that have gripped Israel in recent years. The country has held five elections over three years, as each one has failed to produce a stable enough government. The anti-Netanyahu parties have struggled to form a government without the tie-breaking seats held by Arab parties, and Likud has refused to budge on removing Netanyahu from party leadership. As a result, the country’s politics has coalesced around two divides: whether you’re in the Bibi camp or the anti-Bibi camp. Netanyahu has been in office for 19 years and is the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history. Netanyahu is currently on trial on charges of corruption, bribery, and breach of trust in three cases, and if convicted, could face up to 10 years in prison for bribery and up to 3 years for fraud and breach of trust.
While votes are still being counted as of this writing, the final vote tally will be announced on November 4, 2026. Afterward, Israeli President Issac Herzog will invite one of the blocs to try to form a majority government. He will speak with party leaders about who they want as prime minister, then tap the candidate he believes has the best chance of forming a government. Since no Israeli party has ever received a majority, parties interested in ousting Netanyahu from power will have to form a coalition — a union of parties — among like-minded individuals in order to stand a chance. The person tapped does not necessarily have to be the leader of the party that won the most seats in the Knesset, notably the Likud. The person tasked has up to 42 days to try to form a government, with an initial duration of 28 days, but Herzog can extend it by 14 days.
If the candidate cannot assemble a 61-seat majority, another option is to form a minority government by relying on support from smaller parties, in this case, the Arab parties. They could also try to negotiate a power-sharing agreement with rotating prime ministers, just like the previous anti-Netanyahu government did before 2022. While Netanyahu’s bloc technically has the largest plurality of seats, it would have to persuade one of Eisenkot’s coalition partners to defect to reach a majority of 61 seats. In addition, Netanyahu could also form a “unity government” with Eisenkot. While this was done during Israeli wartime, notably in the fresh wake of the Oct. 7 attacks, Eisenkot and all of his allies have publicly ruled out this option, for now.
Regardless of what the final formation of government looks like, one thing that remains true is that Israel is still a deeply fractured nation. With Israel’s growing demographic crisis, as left-leaning secular Israelis who primarily dominate the financial and high-tech sector, are leaving the country in droves over dismay at the politics of the country, the right-leaning ultra-Orthodox is experiencing an explosion in terms of population growth, many of whom exhibit lower workforce participation rates and are less integrated into mainstream society. If current population trajectory persists, the military, the economy, and public finances will suffer. This Israeli election may be the country’s last chance to change course before it’s too late.
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