Israeli Blocs Run Neck and Neck Ahead of Tuesday's Knesset Ballot

Polls show Israel's two rival blocs heading into Tuesday's parliamentary election deadlocked, with neither positioned to command a governing majority.

The vote is the first national election since the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023 and the Gaza war that followed. It lands as Israel faces multiple ongoing conflicts, international criticism and sharp disagreement at home over security, military service and the courts.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party anchors one side, joined by United Torah Judaism, Shas, Otzma Yehudi and Religious Zionism-Zehut, the last two led by far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. The opposing bloc gathers four Jewish-led movements: Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar party, the Democrats under former deputy chief of staff Yair Golan, Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu, and the Together alliance of former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, which opposition leader Yair Lapid has joined.

A party needs 3.25 percent of the vote to enter the Knesset, whose 120 seats serve a four-year term. The last surveys permitted before a publication ban took effect Friday put the opposition alliance at 52 seats and Netanyahu's bloc at 50, with the remainder going to unaffiliated parties including the Arab-majority lists Ra'am and the Joint List. Neither bloc has agreed to partner with those parties, a stance that could force a minority government or send voters back to the polls.

About 7.3 million Israeli citizens may vote, among them roughly 1.2 million Palestinian citizens of Israel. Turnout in that community could reach 60 percent, and at 65 percent the Arab parties could take as many as 15 seats. Campaigners there are pushing for 70 percent, a level not reached in decades. Last month the Central Elections Committee voted to bar the Joint List and Ra'am; the Supreme Court reversed that ruling but removed Balad leader Sami Abu Shehadeh from the race over an article calling the October 7 attacks "an important historical event."

Voters are weighing demands for accountability over reported security failures before October 2023, anger at the ultra-Orthodox community's exemption from military service, and objections to Netanyahu's repeated pushes for judicial overhaul. Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, said secular and liberal opposition factions see this as "the last chance to save Israeli democracy."

Abroad, several allies have sanctioned Israel's settlements in the occupied West Bank, and many countries have condemned its attacks in Gaza and Lebanon. When Netanyahu addressed the UN General Assembly on September 24, dozens of envoys walked out, some jeering and booing.

The result carries particular weight for Netanyahu, who has governed for more than 15 of the last 17 years. He is scrutinized for alleged security failures before October 7 and corruption charges he has contested since 2019. A loss would leave him more exposed in that trial, which can end in a prison sentence if he is convicted, and would affect the prospects of an inquiry into the 2023 attacks. He is also subject to an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for war crimes.

Netanyahu has cast his rivals as potential partners of the Arab parties, saying only Likud can prevent that arrangement. Joseph Mansour, a former aide to Knesset member Ayman Odeh, said the approach could keep Netanyahu in office as caretaker prime minister if neither bloc reaches a majority. Roughly three million adult Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem have no vote in the government that controls their borders, movement and legal status.