Israelis vote in tense election testing Netanyahu’s grip on power

Israelis are voting in a pivotal election Tuesday as their country is embroiled in unresolved wars, still reeling from Hamas’ 2023 attack and deeply divided over the character of the state and the right person to lead it.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing off against an array of parties seeking to oust the long-time leader from power. Opinion polls have suggested a tight race with his main rival, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot. Over 7 million people are eligible to vote.

In Israel’s fragmented parliamentary politics, no single party has ever won an outright parliamentary majority, so political leaders must forge coalitions.

There is a chance that neither Netanyahu’s religious and ultranationalist coalition nor the group of parties looking to remove him has enough support to win a parliamentary majority. That could set off weeks of negotiations before a leader is declared.

Israel’s Arab-led parties, who are pushing for heavy turnout, could emerge as kingmakers if they agree to support one candidate over the other – and if other parties agree to join forces with them.

Already, some emotions were high as polls opened. In Kiryat Shmona, a Netanyahu stronghold near the border with Lebanon, one man kicked and tore down a poster of Eisenkot.

Hanging over the election are lingering tensions with Iran. Netanyahu ramped up threats against the country ahead of the vote. He appeared in a video this week standing beside a missile-defence battery and warned Tehran it would face “a devastating blow” if it attacked Israel.

The election is Israel’s first national vote since the October 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war in Gaza and related conflicts across the region. In Tel Aviv, families of some of those killed on October 7 or former hostages held a moment of silence before polls opened. “Remember all those whose voices are no more,” said Yona Adam, whose daughter Mapal Adam was killed.

Around 330,000 young Israelis, many facing compulsory military service under the shadow of war, are eligible to vote for the first time.

The vote serves not only as a referendum on Netanyahu’s lengthy leadership but also on what kind of country Israel should be – heavily influenced by religious and nationalist forces, or more firmly anchored in liberal and secular values. Tens of thousands of voters living overseas reportedly flew to Israel to vote.

At stake is the fate of a country whose policies and leadership are being sharply criticised by its traditional allies. Since the 2023 attack, Israel has found itself increasingly isolated over its conduct in Gaza and in the occupied West Bank, where violence by Jewish settlers has intensified. Public support among Americans has plummeted and stalwart partners in Europe and elsewhere have slapped sanctions on Israel in recent months.

For Israelis, the election presents a chance at charting the country’s course after Netanyahu’s latest, and especially turbulent, four-year term.

Netanyahu’s supporters see him as a steady hand and a consummate statesman who they believe has triumphantly guided Israel through multiple wars. They think he is protecting Israel’s Jewish identity while keeping in check what they see as an interventionist judiciary.

His Israeli detractors see him as a polarising leader who, beset by an ongoing corruption trial, dragged on the war in Gaza and its hostage crisis for political reasons. They say he is undermining Israel’s independent judiciary and weakening its democratic underpinnings. And they accuse him of abetting a system that has allowed ultra-Orthodox religious Jews to avoid enlistment in Israel’s compulsory military.

Eisenkot is viewed by supporters as a capable leader with sterling security credentials who, along with his likely governing partners, could act as a bulwark against creeping illiberalism. As someone personally touched by the conflict – his son and two nephews were killed in Gaza – his backers believe that he feels deeply the pain that still courses through Israel three years after the attacks.

Parties that would likely throw their support behind Eisenkot have vowed to improve Israel’s international standing and work to conscript ultra-Orthodox men while bolstering the independence of the judiciary.