Israeli President Isaac Herzog has accepted the certified results of the October 27 parliamentary election and begun consultations with party leaders on whom to task with forming the next government. According to Al Jazeera, neither Netanyahu nor his rival Gadi Eisenkot has a majority.
Netanyahu’s coalition won 53 seats and Eisenkot’s bloc won 48 in the 120-member parliament, Al Jazeera reported. A party bloc needs 61 seats to govern.
The Arab-led parties Ra’am and the Joint List together secured a record 19 seats, according to Al Jazeera. Ra’am said it would recommend Eisenkot. Ynet reportedly put Eisenkot’s expected supporters at 56, which would still fall short of a majority. The Joint List had not announced its position, though Channel 12 reportedly said it was expected to coordinate with Eisenkot.
Degel HaTorah, which holds four of United Torah Judaism’s seven seats, said it would recommend neither candidate. Al Jazeera reported that the party broke with Netanyahu over the failure to pass Haredi military-exemption legislation.
According to The Hindu, Israel’s Central Elections Committee audited 9,069 polling stations after complaints and found no evidence that would question the integrity of the results.
Netanyahu and his allies repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims that Arab-led parties had "stolen" the election, possibly with foreign help, according to Al Jazeera. Netanyahu pointed to the arrests of several people carrying envelopes of cash on election day, which authorities called localised incidents, and accused party leaders of accepting money from Qatar, The Hindu reported.
Netanyahu also pointed to "serious suspicions that foreign states have spent considerable sums to influence the outcome," per The Hindu. The elections commission said it investigated all fraud claims and found "no evidence of irregularities that compromised the integrity of the election or affected its results," Al Jazeera reported. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara rejected a request to question elected officials without supporting evidence, according to Al Jazeera.
Herzog urged both camps to compromise, saying "not every commitment and promise can be fulfilled." He condemned "coarseness and racist expressions" against Israel’s Palestinian minority, which makes up about 20 percent of the population.
Herzog will allow 28 days for the chosen nominee to form a government, with a possible 14-day extension. If neither candidate succeeds, a new election would be held early next year, according to Al Jazeera.
Consultations continue on Thursday, with eight more parties meeting Herzog, including Ra’am and the Joint List. Eisenkot’s Yashar and Netanyahu’s Likud are scheduled to go last.
Several key points remain unresolved. The sources do not yet include Netanyahu’s response to the certified results or the outcome of Thursday’s consultations. There is no confirmed final count of Eisenkot’s support; the 56 figure is an expectation. The Hindu is the only outlet reporting that Ben Gvir’s party does not accept the results and that he called for arrests of Arab-Israeli party leaders. It is also the only source for reports that authorities were investigating Ayman Odeh over alleged foreign money, which has no official confirmation, and for a reported Trump decision to end nearly $4 billion in annual US military aid to Israel.
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This article was written with AI assistance from the published reporting listed above. It is part of the World Brief daily news podcast.