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- Voter turnout reaches 77.9%, highest since 1999 - Final vote count gives Netanyahu-led bloc 53 seats, Eisenkot’s bloc 48, while Arab parties secure 19 seats, nearly doubling their tally from the 2022 election - Final official results to be presented to President Herzog on Nov. 4, once Central Elections Committee completes review of reported errors, complaints
By Serdar Dincel
ISTANBUL (AA) – Israel's Central Elections Committee (CEC) released the final results of the 2026 legislative elections early Friday, with neither bloc securing the 61 seats required for a majority in the 120-member Knesset and the formation of a government.
The final official results are expected to be presented to President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday, Nov. 4, once the committee has completed its review of any reported errors and complaints.
Herzog will then meet with the leaders of each party, who will recommend a candidate to form the next government.
Voter turnout reached 77.9%, the highest since 1999, with 5,716,665 eligible voters casting ballots.
- Pro-Netanyahu bloc
The final results show Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party winning 27 seats, down from the 32 it secured in the 2022 parliamentary elections.
The ultra-Orthodox alliance United Torah Judaism, headed by Ya’akov Asher, and far-right Otzma Yehudit, led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, also secured seven seats each.
They were followed by the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, led by Aryeh Deri, and the far-right Religious Zionism party, headed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, with each securing six seats.
Shas’s tally marked a decline from the 11 seats it won in the previous election.
In 2022, the Religious Zionist alliance, comprising the Religious Zionism Party, Otzma Yehudit and Noam, led by Avi Maoz, won 14 seats. In the 2026 election, the Religious Zionism Party and Otzma Yehudit secured a combined 13 seats, while Noam failed to cross the 3.25% electoral threshold.
- Jewish opposition bloc
The Yashar party, led by Netanyahu's main challenger and former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, won 21 seats.
The results give the Together alliance, formed by former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid and their respective parties, Bennett 2026 and Yesh Atid, a total of 12 seats -- down from the 24 seats won by Yesh Atid alone in the 2022 elections.
The Democrats, a left-wing party chaired by Yair Golan, secured eight seats, doubling its four-seat tally in 2022.
The Democrats were followed by Yisrael Beiteinu, a right-wing opposition party led by former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, which secured seven seats, up one from the previous vote.
- Arab parties
Arab parties — including the Joint List and the United Arab List (Ra’am) — which are neither aligned with the governing coalition nor the Jewish opposition bloc, secured a combined 19 seats, with 11 of them going to the Joint List and eight to Ra’am.
This marks a significant increase from the 10 seats won by the Joint List and Ra’am combined in the 2022 elections, when each secured five seats.
- Coalition formation
The results give the pro-Netanyahu bloc 53 seats, compared with 48 for the Jewish opposition bloc and 19 for the Arab parties.
The pro-Netanyahu parties, which make up the current governing coalition, held 68 seats in the outgoing Knesset, a considerable decline from their previous total.
The Arab parties — the Joint List and Ra’am — secured a record 19 seats, nearly doubling their combined 10 seats in the outgoing Knesset.
The Arab factions' support would have been enough to give the opposition bloc a comfortable majority. However, most Jewish opposition parties, including Eisenkot’s bloc, had previously ruled out cooperation with the Arab parties.
The exception was Yair Golan, leader of The Democrats, who urged Eisenkot’s bloc to work with the Arab-majority parties to oust Netanyahu.
The new Knesset is scheduled to be sworn in on Nov. 10, regardless of the progress of coalition talks, which are expected to be difficult and could last more than two months.
Both Netanyahu and Eisenkot asserted that each would be the one to form the next government, despite neither bloc being close to the 61 seats needed for a parliamentary majority.
Tuesday’s vote also marked Israel’s first election since the Israeli army launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, in which more than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 175,000 others wounded.
