Israel Election Final Results: Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc has finished first but fallen eight seats short of a governing majority, after Israel's Central Elections Committee released the final results of the October 27 general election early on Friday, October 30, 2026.
Netanyahu's coalition of right-wing and far-right parties won 53 of the Knesset's 120 seats. His Likud party remained the largest single faction, with 27 seats. The opposition bloc led by centrist Gadi Eisenkot secured 48 seats, while Arab party groupings Raam and the Joint List together won 19 seats — a breakthrough that makes them potential kingmakers in the coalition talks ahead.
The Central Elections Committee completed the count including the special double-envelope ballots — votes cast by soldiers, diplomats, hospital patients and others away from their home polling stations — and released the final figures early on Friday. Israeli media reported 5,589,836 votes recorded across 12,644 polling stations, including 5,564,764 valid votes and 25,072 invalid votes.
The headline numbers barely moved from the partial counts reported during the week, but the final release settles the shape of the next Knesset. Netanyahu's bloc held at 53, the opposition at 48 and the Arab parties at 19. Within those blocs, Likud finished on 27, Yashar on 21, B'Yachad on 12 and the Joint List on 11. Raam and the Democrats each took eight seats, while United Torah Judaism, Yisrael Beiteinu and Otzma Yehudit secured seven apiece, and Shas and Religious Zionism won six each.
The commission said the final results will be formally presented on Wednesday to President Herzog, who will then consult party leaders before tasking one of them with trying to form a government. That process, Israeli politics watchers say, could last weeks — and there is no guarantee that the first candidate chosen will succeed.
Israelis voted on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, in the first general election since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023. Turnout was exceptionally high: 77.7 per cent of the 7.33 million eligible voters cast ballots, the highest since 1999, and the highest ever recorded at several points during polling day. Arab towns also reported a surge, with Umm al-Fahm reaching 70.1 per cent against 38.3 per cent across the whole of election day in 2022, and Nazareth about 70 per cent against 48.3 per cent.
Exit polls on election night already pointed to a hung parliament, putting Netanyahu's bloc at 50 seats in all three major surveys, the Jewish-led opposition at 52 or 53, and Arab parties at 17 or 18. As counting progressed, Netanyahu's bloc rose to 53 and the Arab parties to 19, while the opposition settled at 48. The final count confirms that trajectory: no bloc commands a majority, and the combined anti-Netanyahu camp — opposition plus Arab parties — totals 67 seats, six more than the 61 needed, but only if parties that have never governed together can agree to cooperate.
The election was also shaped by an unusually bitter argument over the integrity of the vote itself. On polling day, Netanyahu warned Likud voters that Arab voters were, in his words, racing to the ballots, and said rivals were trying to steal the election. Three people were arrested over money-filled envelopes on suspicion of voter bribery, an episode the electoral commission later described as an isolated local case.
On Thursday, Likud escalated the dispute, posting that the Raamgate scandal was a political earthquake and that Israel's elections had been stolen, and circulating claims that Arab parties had received Qatari funds to finance vote-buying. Police have previously said they found no investigative or intelligence-based evidence for Likud's wider fraud claims, and the Central Elections Committee has dismissed suggestions of systematic manipulation.
Raam leader Mansour Abbas denied any wrongdoing and welcomed an investigation. The Joint List accused Netanyahu and his allies of conducting a campaign of incitement out of fear of Arab voters' growing political influence. Qatar called the latest accusations ridiculous and dangerous.
Eisenkot said he had been briefed by Shin Bet and the election committee, adding that it was too early to understand what happened, and whether anything happened at all. He continued: "It's already clear that Likud and Netanyahu have embarked on a coordinated, organised campaign seeking to delegitimise the results of the election."
Left-wing candidate Yair Golan said Netanyahu was trying to challenge the election results. Yousef Jabareen, head of the Joint List, told Agence France-Presse that he was willing to cooperate with the opposition to bring down Netanyahu but without joining it in a government.
Israel's Shin Bet domestic security service said it was investigating suspected irregularities, but stressed that the probe was not intended to cast aspersions or place blame on an entire sector that went out to vote in a democratic and lawful manner. The electoral commission's acting director general, Dean Livne, said any suggestion of widespread issues was entirely groundless, and the commission added that the investigation would have no impact on the final results submitted to the president.
Netanyahu himself has long faced allegations related to Qatar, after two of his aides were arrested last year for allegedly receiving payments from the Gulf state. He has also, for years, tacitly supported Qatari funding for Hamas in Gaza in the hope of preserving stability — an approach that collapsed on October 7, 2023.
The final results matter because they turn a close election into a genuine governing puzzle. Netanyahu is the largest party leader, but 53 is not 61, and his traditional partners are already counted inside that total. He needs eight more seats from somewhere — and the only blocs with seats to spare are the opposition and the Arab parties, neither of which is a natural partner for his coalition.
The opposition faces the mirror-image problem. Eisenkot's 48 seats, even combined with the Arab parties' 19, would require an arrangement that many Jewish-led parties have historically resisted: a government dependent on Arab support, whether through a formal coalition, an outside-support deal, or a minority government tolerated from outside. Jabareen's offer of cooperation without joining a government points to one possible shape, but it would be fragile and contested from day one.
A third arithmetic possibility has also been discussed in Israeli media: a unity government spanning Likud and opposition factions such as Yashar, B'Yachad and Yisrael Beiteinu, which could theoretically command 66 seats. That would require Netanyahu and Eisenkot — rivals who have spent the campaign attacking each other's legitimacy — to share power. President Donald Trump has already claimed his endorsement made a big difference for Netanyahu and said he would take a look at helping a Netanyahu-led unity government, though United States officials have said Washington has not decided whether to intervene.
For the wider region, the stalemate lands at a sensitive moment. Israel is still reckoning with the war that followed October 7, 2023, and with United States warnings about possible military action against Iran after the American midterms. A government that takes weeks to form, or fails to form at all, leaves those decisions in the hands of a caretaker leadership with limited political authority.
The formal timetable now runs through President Herzog. After the final results are presented to him on Wednesday, he will consult the leaders of every party elected to the Knesset and then task the candidate he judges most likely to succeed with forming a government. That candidate normally has 28 days, with a possible 14-day extension, to assemble a coalition commanding at least 61 seats.
If the first candidate fails, Herzog can task another. If no candidate succeeds, the Knesset itself gets a chance to nominate a member, and if that too fails, Israel returns to the polls. Given the country's recent history of repeated elections, that outcome cannot be ruled out — but it is also the outcome party leaders will be under the most pressure to avoid, after a campaign that already tested public faith in the electoral process.
The Shin Bet investigation will continue alongside the coalition talks, but the electoral commission has made clear it will not change the results submitted to the president. The more consequential question is political: whether the fraud allegations, unproven and rejected by the authorities, nevertheless poison the atmosphere in which a government must be built.
Watch, in the coming days, for three signals: whether Netanyahu or Eisenkot is tasked first; whether any party breaks ranks from its bloc; and whether Raam or the Joint List moves from kingmaker rhetoric to a concrete offer of support — and at what price.
How many seats did Netanyahu's bloc win? 53 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, eight short of the 61-seat majority.
Who is the largest single party? Likud, with 27 seats, followed by Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar with 21 seats.
How many seats did Arab parties win? 19 combined — the Joint List with 11 and Raam with eight — making them potential kingmakers.
What happens next? The final results go to President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday, he consults party leaders, and he tasks a candidate with forming a government within 28 days, extendable by 14 days.
Could there be another election? Yes. If no candidate can assemble a 61-seat majority, Israel could face another vote, as it has several times in the past.
Read more on US News Pulse: Israel Election 2026: Netanyahu Fights for Survival as Israel Votes, Israel Election Fraud Claims Rejected as Police Find No Evidence for Likud Charges, and Trump Claims His Endorsement Saved Netanyahu in Israel Election.
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