Netanyahu builds strong position if Israel has to vote again

For now, Benjamin Netanyahu has managed to hold on to power after a stronger-then-expected performance in Israel’s elections.

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The country’s longest-serving prime minister, and one of the world’s most controversial leaders, defied the predictions of pollsters and markets with his performance on Tuesday.

While he’s set to fall short of a majority, his bloc will likely win 53 seats in the 120-seat parliament, more than the 48 for the main opposition group headed by Gadi Eisenkot, a former general. Netanyahu’s party, Likud, saw its vote drop from the last elections in 2022, but is still the most popular party this time around.

Election officials are yet to count hundreds of thousands of votes, but the result is broadly clear.

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There’s a chance Netanyahu can convince some members of Eisenkot’s bloc to join him in a government. Conversely, Eisenkot might form a coalition with Israel’s Arab parties or — less likely — he puts his animosity with Netanyahu aside and they rule together.

There’s a high likelihood all those efforts fail and Israel ends up going to the polls again in a few months.

Netanyahu would “go into those elections certainly with an advantage,” Steven Cook, director of the Middle East program at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Bloomberg TV.

Polls had said Eisenkot’s bloc would probably win, even if it was unlikely to get a majority of seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Prediction markets had Eisenkot as the favorite since July, giving him a roughly 50% chance of being the next prime minister, versus 30% for Netanyahu.

And around half way through voting, it wasn’t looking good for the 77-year-old leader — blamed by many Israelis for intelligence failings that enabled the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023. Israel’s election commission said turnout was close to the highest on record, which analysts took to be bad for the incumbent far-right government and good for Eisenkot.

Eisenkot’s odds surged to almost 70% on Polymarket and the shekel headed for its biggest gain since mid-2025, a sign traders saw the opposition as having a clear pathway to forming the next government.

Netanyahu sounded almost desperate, taking to social media with incendiary comments about Arabs voting in huge numbers. He told his supporters Israel would cease to be a Jewish state if they didn’t rush to the polls.

“Make sure everyone comes: grandpa, grandma, uncle and aunt, the neighbours,” Netanyahu said. “Nobody stays home. No beach, no barbecue. Go out and vote.”

The message from Netanyahu, who’s led Israel for almost 20 years in total, may have worked. He’s likely to take his bloc’s performance as an endorsement of continued aggression against Iran and expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

“There was clearly a surge at the end that gave a significant advantage to Netanyahu and his coalition,” said Cook.

The first exit polls after voting closed at 10 p.m. looked fairly good for Eisenkot but worsened as they were updated. Forecasts that he was set to win, albeit without a majority, turned into a tie and then a victory for Netanyahu.

Netanyahu waited until around 3:15 a.m. before speaking to his supporters in Jerusalem.

He appeared jubilant and called officials from his Likud party on to the stage to sing the national anthem, after declaring “a clear, decisive” win.

That looks like an exaggeration and there’s no guarantee he will be the head of the next government, whenever it’s formed. But his position is looking far stronger than most people expected.

— With assistance from Tom Fevrier

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