Israelis go to the polls on Tuesday, 27 October, to elect a new 120-seat Knesset. It is their first general election since Hamas’s attack of 7 October 2023, and it arrives with Gaza unsettled and a war with Iran still simmering. Some 7.3 million people are eligible to vote.
The headline question is a familiar one: should Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, stay in power? Beneath it lies a less comfortable truth. Whoever wins, Israel’s hard line on its enemies is not really on the ballot.
How does the vote work?
Israelis vote for party lists, not for a prime minister. Seats are shared out in proportion to the national vote, and a list need at least 3.25 per cent to win any.
A government needs the support of 61 members. No party has ever won that alone, so the real contest begins after the count, in coalition bargaining. Polls close at 10pm local time, when the television channels release their exit polls.
Who is likely to win the Israel election 2026?
The final surveys, published on Friday before a legal blackout on new polls, all put Gadi Eisenkot’s young centrist party, Yashar, first with 22 or 23 seats. Netanyahu’s Likud trailed on 19 to 21. Eisenkot, a former army chief whose son was killed fighting in Gaza, also leads as preferred prime minister in most polls.
Yet blocs matter more than parties. The opposition, made up of Yashar, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid’s Together, Yair Golan’s Democrats and Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu, polled 52 to 56 seats. Netanyahu’s camp, with two far right and two ultra-Orthodox partners, sat on about 50. Neither reaches 61.
The swing factor is the Arab-majority parties, projected at 14 to 16 seats. Eisenkot, Bennett and Lieberman have ruled out bringing them into government, leaving the opposition short unless it accepts a minority government propped up from outside. With nearly a third of voters still undecided a week out, and Channel 14 showing Likud well ahead, surprises remain possible.
What would Netanyahu’s camp do?
Hamas. Netanyahu insists the army will not leave Gaza until Hamas is fully disarmed, which is why he rejected the latest version of Donald Trump’s Gaza plan in August. He has also vowed that “as long as I am prime minister, there will be no Palestinian state”. Reconstruction and policing plans for Gaza have been parked until after the vote.
His far-right allies, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, want to go further and rebuild Jewish settlements in Gaza, an idea Trump’s plan explicitly rules out.
The US. Trump has endorsed Netanyahu and hinted that his defeat would carry consequences for relations with Washington. Yet the friendship has friction: Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, are frustrated by Netanyahu’s foot-dragging on Gaza.
Iran. Joint US-Israeli strikes in February killed Iran’s supreme leader, but a ceasefire and a June deal both unravelled. Netanyahu is campaigning as the man to finish the job. Critics accuse him of courting renewed war to sway the vote, a charge he denies.
What would an Eisenkot-led government do?
Hamas. Eisenkot promises to end Hamas rule within 18 months, through Trump’s plan or fresh military action, while keeping an Israeli security corridor inside Gaza. He opposes a Palestinian state but would prefer the Palestinian Authority to Hamas. His sharpest line: “as long as Netanyahu is in office, Hamas stays in power”. Bennett’s Together wants a bigger army and a disarm-or-else ultimatum to Hamas.
The US. Yashar pledges closer ties with Washington and more peace deals with Arab states. A new government would have every reason to court Trump and could ease the souring mood towards Israel among Americans, Democrats included.
Iran. Eisenkot calls Iran Israel’s foremost threat. If diplomacy fails, he wants America to declare a “kill zone” around Iran’s highly enriched uranium and strike any attempt to move it. That is hardly dovish.
The verdict: a hawk-versus-hawk election
Here is the paradox. Trump has endorsed the leader who is stalling his Gaza plan, while the challenger is likelier to carry it out. On Hamas and Iran, the two camps differ in temperament and competence, not in destination.
The real fault lines lie elsewhere: settlements in Gaza, a state inquiry into 7 October, military service for the ultra-Orthodox and the health of Israel’s institutions. Voters themselves rank the cost of living above the Iran war.
Netanyahu’s supporters counter that his record against Hezbollah and Iran proves he alone can face down Tehran and deal with Trump as an equal. His critics point to the security failure of 7 October, an International Criminal Court arrest warrant and Israel’s deepening isolation.
Eisenkot will probably lead the largest party, but the opposition’s refusal to work with Arab parties hands Netanyahu his best weapon, which is deadlock. A unity government, which a third of voters say they would accept, is one escape hatch. The other is a seventh election since 2019, with Netanyahu staying on as caretaker in the meantime. Tuesday may settle less than it promises.
