No winner, two mandates: Israel faces a hung parliament after a deadlocked vote
Exit polls from Israel's first election since the October 7, 2023 attack leave Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc and Gadi Eisenkot's opposition short of a majority, with record turnout and surging Arab parties now central to what happens next.
Published 28 October 2026 · 05:05 GMT
The summary
Exit polls from Israel's first election since the October 7, 2023 attack leave Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc and Gadi Eisenkot's opposition short of a majority, with record turnout and surging Arab parties now central to what happens next. Israel's election on Tuesday, 27 October 2026, produced no clear winner in exit polls, with neither Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc nor Gadi Eisenkot's opposition bloc projected to reach the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset.
The three lenses
- WestWestern coverage reads the result first as a problem of governing arithmetic and second as a security question.
- EastAsian coverage, led by Singapore's CNA, reads the same numbers as a setback for an incumbent who has dominated Israeli politics for three decades, while noting how narrow the setback is.
- Global SouthCoverage from the Global South, led by Al Jazeera, reads the night through the voters the other lenses treat as arithmetic.
Key facts
- Israel's election on Tuesday, 27 October 2026, produced no clear winner in exit polls, with neither Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc nor Gadi Eisenkot's opposition bloc projected to reach the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. Reuters (Oct 28, 2026)
- Turnout reached 77.7 per cent by the close of polls, up from 70.6 per cent in 2022 and the highest since 1999, according to Central Elections Committee figures reported by Israeli media. Al Jazeera (Oct 28, 2026)
- Updated exit polls put Netanyahu's bloc at 51 to 52 seats and Eisenkot's bloc at 49 to 51 seats, while Likud was projected as the largest single party, with 27 seats. Al Jazeera (Oct 28, 2026)
- Arab parties, the Joint List and Ra'am, were projected to win a combined 18 to 19 seats, potentially making them decisive to the coalition arithmetic. Al Jazeera (Oct 28, 2026)
- Netanyahu called for a strong right-wing government after 3 a.m. in Jerusalem, while Eisenkot said voters had chosen change and called Netanyahu a caretaker without a mandate. The Hindu (Oct 28, 2026)
- Final results are due on 4 November, after which President Isaac Herzog will consult party leaders and ask the candidate best placed to form a government to try. Al Jazeera (Oct 27, 2026)
What happens now after a vote with no winner?
Polls closed at 10 p.m. local time on Tuesday, 27 October, and within hours it was clear that Israel's first election since the Hamas-led attack of 7 October 2023 had not produced a government. Exit polls from the country's main television channels pointed in the same direction even as their seat estimates differed: neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc nor the opposition bloc led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot had a majority. By the early hours of Wednesday, both men had addressed supporters as if the night belonged to them. Netanyahu, speaking in Jerusalem after 3 a.m., called for a strong government of the right and said Likud was the largest party. Eisenkot, speaking in Tel Aviv, said the public had voted for change and described Netanyahu as a caretaker prime minister without a mandate. Neither man claimed an outright victory, because neither could. The official count was still under way, with preliminary results expected during Wednesday and the final tally due on 4 November. What follows is therefore not a transfer of power but a contest over who gets the first chance to build one.
What the exit polls and the turnout figures actually establish
The hard facts are narrower than the speeches, and they are worth holding on to. A government needs 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, and no single party has ever won that many alone. The updated exit polls put Netanyahu's bloc at 51 to 52 seats and Eisenkot's bloc at 49 to 51 seats, with Kan 11 and Channel 13 showing a 51-51 tie and Channel 12 giving Netanyahu's bloc a 52-49 edge. Earlier projections had briefly put Eisenkot's bloc ahead, which is why the overnight shift mattered politically even though it changed no votes. Likud was projected as the largest single party, with 27 seats in the updated Channel 12 and Channel 13 projections, against 21 for Eisenkot's Yashar party. Turnout reached 77.7 per cent by the close, up 7.1 percentage points from 2022 and the highest since 1999. The Arab parties outside both main blocs, the Joint List and Ra'am, were projected to win 18 to 19 seats combined, up sharply from their showing in 2022. Inside Netanyahu's bloc, the far-right parties of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich were projected to take a combined 13 seats, with no major gains for either man. That is the arithmetic every coalition negotiation must now solve.
What the exit polls cannot settle before the final count
Almost everything that decides the next government remains unknown, and the exit polls themselves warn against reading them as results. They are estimates from the broadcasters, not the Central Elections Committee, and they moved during the night: first Eisenkot's bloc led, then the blocs tied, then Channel 12 put Netanyahu's bloc ahead. About 600,000 votes cast away from ordinary polling stations, almost all by soldiers, were not due to be counted until later in the week, and those ballots can move seats at the margins where this election will be decided. The final seat distribution, including which smaller parties clear the electoral threshold, is therefore still open. So is the identity of the Arab parties' final total, which ranged from 16 to 19 seats across different projections. Above all, it is unknown whether either bloc can assemble 61 seats at all, and on what terms. A projection is a snapshot of a sample; a coalition is a contract between parties that have spent a campaign attacking each other. The gap between those two things is where this story will now be decided.
Why a hung parliament matters far beyond the Knesset chamber
This was not an ordinary election, and its deadlock is not an ordinary delay. It was the first national vote since the attack of 7 October 2023 and the wars that followed in Gaza, Lebanon and beyond, and the campaign was fought as a verdict on Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, and on the security establishment he leads. A hung parliament means that verdict has been delivered without a clear instruction: voters turned out in record numbers, yet handed neither camp the power to govern. That leaves the country's most sensitive decisions, above all any further action against Iran, in the hands of a caretaker government while politicians bargain. It also leaves the position of Israel's Arab citizens, whose turnout surged, at the centre of the arithmetic: their parties hold seats both blocs may need, yet most opposition leaders have ruled out governing with them. For neighbours, allies and markets, the message is uncertainty with a long fuse. Israel has been here before, with three elections between April 2019 and March 2020, but the stakes this time are set by war, and by a prime minister who has shown he can govern through deadlock.
How should two rival victory speeches be read at 3 a.m.?
Read them as opening bids, not as results. Netanyahu's speech did two things at once: it claimed the largest party and it redefined the majority, calling for a government of the right and for a decisive majority among what he called the Zionist public. That framing matters because it sidesteps the inconvenient total, the 120 seats in which his bloc holds only about 52, and invites his supporters to count a different electorate. Eisenkot's speech did the mirror image: it claimed the mood, the change, the end of an era, while glossing over his own bloc's shortfall and his refusal to govern with the Arab parties whose seats he would need. Both men were speaking to the next audience, not the last one: the small parties, the president, and the undecided voters in a possible second election. The first election since October 7 was always going to be a referendum on Netanyahu, but referendums need a majority to mean anything. This one produced a turnout without a verdict, and that is why both camps could celebrate the same night without either being wrong about the polls or right about the outcome.
What a long coalition negotiation does to security, markets and neighbours
A long negotiation is not a pause; it is a form of government, and it has costs. A caretaker prime minister remains in office and retains the ability to order military action, which means the Iran question that Netanyahu raised in his speech does not wait for a coalition agreement. At the same time, a caretaker lacks a fresh mandate for the large domestic bargains, over the military, the courts and the budget, that a new government would need to strike. Markets and allies must therefore price two risks at once: a government too weak to decide, and a government free to act without having won. The surge of Arab parties to a projected 18 seats adds a third pressure, because any coalition that excludes them must find its majority elsewhere, while any coalition that includes them must survive the political cost of doing so. Neighbours will watch the negotiation for signals about Gaza, the West Bank and Iran, and will read delay as either restraint or drift. The wider regional picture rarely waits for a coalition to form.
What must happen before Israel has a government?
The calendar is fixed even if the outcome is not. Preliminary results are expected during Wednesday, and the final tally is due on 4 November. President Isaac Herzog will then consult party leaders and ask the candidate he judges best able to form a government to try. That candidate will have 28 days, extendable by 14, to assemble at least 61 seats and win a confidence vote. If that candidate fails, the president may ask another member of the Knesset, who will have 28 days; if that attempt also fails, a majority of members may nominate a third candidate, with 14 days. If all three fail, the Knesset is dissolved and Israelis return to the polls within 90 days, with Netanyahu's government remaining as caretaker throughout. Watch four things in that sequence: the final seat counts and the fate of parties near the threshold; Herzog's choice of first candidate, which need not be the leader of the largest party; the price demanded by the small parties in both blocs; and whether the Arab parties remain outside every coalition or become the price of one. The election that was fought over October 7 will now be settled, if it is settled, by arithmetic.
The three lenses
West Lens:
Western coverage reads the result first as a problem of governing arithmetic and second as a security question. Reuters and the BBC frame the night as rival claims to a mandate that neither man holds, and stress the caretaker advantage: deadlock, in this telling, keeps Netanyahu in office while negotiations drag on. The questions that follow are about continuity and risk, whether a caretaker government can take major security decisions, how Washington reads a prolonged negotiation, and whether markets price in months of uncertainty.
East Lens:
Asian coverage, led by Singapore's CNA, reads the same numbers as a setback for an incumbent who has dominated Israeli politics for three decades, while noting how narrow the setback is. Eisenkot is presented through his security record, a former chief of staff who joined Netanyahu's war cabinet after the 2023 attack and quit eight months later, criticising the prime minister's leadership. The emphasis falls on what has changed rather than what has been settled: a record turnout, a challenger with military credibility, and a far-right bloc that did not grow.
South Lens:
Coverage from the Global South, led by Al Jazeera, reads the night through the voters the other lenses treat as arithmetic. Arab parties' projected gains, and the celebrations in Arab towns in Israel, are treated as a political event in their own right, the product of a mobilisation against a government that campaigned against them. The war in Gaza and the escalating violence in the occupied West Bank are kept in the frame, not as background but as the context in which the vote was cast.
The consensus
- What we agree on
- What we agree on: Israel's election ended without a clear winner in the exit polls, with record turnout, Likud as the largest single party, and neither main bloc holding the 61 seats needed to govern.
- What we don't agree on
- What we disagree on: whether the result is a defeat for Netanyahu, a mandate for change, or a stalemate that leaves the incumbent in the stronger position while negotiations drag on.
- What we know
- What we know: the turnout figure, the range of exit-poll projections, the 61-seat threshold, the final-results date of 4 November, and the constitutional steps that follow.
- What we don't know yet
- What we do not know: the final seat counts, which candidate the president will ask first, whether any coalition can reach 61 seats, or whether Israel will face another election.
- What we expect
- What we expect: days of counting, then weeks of coalition bargaining in which small parties and Arab parties hold unusual leverage, with Netanyahu remaining in office as caretaker in the meantime.
Questions, answered
Why is there no winner yet in Israel's election?
Exit polls show neither main bloc reaching the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset, with Netanyahu's bloc at 51 to 52 seats and Eisenkot's bloc at 49 to 51. Exit polls are estimates from television channels, not official results, and the final tally is due on 4 November, so no party can yet claim a governing majority.
Who are the two men claiming a mandate?
Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister and Likud leader, called for a strong right-wing government and pointed to Likud as the largest party. Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief leading the Yashar party, said voters had chosen change and called Netanyahu a caretaker without a mandate. Neither claimed an outright victory, because the exit polls give neither bloc a majority.
How does Israel form a government after a hung parliament?
President Isaac Herzog consults party leaders after the final results and asks the candidate best placed to form a government to try. That candidate has 28 days, extendable by 14, to build a coalition of at least 61 seats and win a confidence vote. If that fails, another candidate gets 28 days, then a third gets 14 days, before dissolution and a new election.
Why do Arab parties matter so much this time?
The Joint List and Ra'am are projected to win 18 to 19 seats combined, outside both main blocs, after a surge in turnout among Arab citizens of Israel. Neither main bloc reaches 61 seats without them or without new alliances, yet most opposition leaders have ruled out governing with them. That makes their seats both decisive and difficult to use.
Sources
- Reuters (Oct 28, 2026)
- Al Jazeera (Oct 28, 2026)
- The Hindu (Oct 28, 2026)
- Al Jazeera (Oct 27, 2026)