Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a fight for political survival in Israel’s election on Tuesday, with voters weighing his leadership after the 2023 attacks, wars in Gaza and with Iran, and Israel’s deepening international isolation.
Yet Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader with 19 years in office, remains a formidable survivor, with nationalist politics increasingly entrenched and Israel’s fragmented system potentially leaving him best placed to form a government.
Opinion polls show a close race between Netanyahu’s Likud party and its right-wing allies and a rival alliance led by Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief of staff and security hawk with backers on the right and in the centre.
Voters began casting ballots after polling stations opened at 7 a.m. (0500 GMT). The polls close at 10 p.m. (2000 GMT). Netanyahu has campaigned on his wartime leadership and his alliance with US President Donald Trump, who has endorsed him and joined Israel in waging war on Iran. Netanyahu said on Sunday that Trump was prepared to act again to “finally” remove the Iranian threat, but only if Netanyahu remained in power.
Eisenkot has accused Netanyahu of “relying on a campaign of fear-mongering, lies and threats,” and said he was confident Trump would work “in full cooperation with any leader chosen by the people.”
Netanyahu may again depend on far-right leaders Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich to form a government. Both have faced sanctions from some Western countries that accuse them of inciting violence against Palestinians, while Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party has gained support in opinion polls.
Neither Netanyahu nor Eisenkot has a clear path to power. If neither can form a governing coalition in the 120-seat parliament, Netanyahu could stay on as caretaker until another election is held next year.
The Israeli Central Election Committee said 7.3 million Israelis are eligible to vote, some 330,000 of them for the first time.
The election follows one of Israel’s most turbulent periods since its establishment in 1948, shaped by the trauma of the October 7, 2023, attacks, Israel’s subsequent military assault in Gaza and deep domestic divisions over the policies of Netanyahu’s right-wing government.
For many of Netanyahu’s opponents, the election turns on accountability for the security failures of October 7, Israel’s deadliest day.
Mali Hajaj, an Education Ministry employee and Eisenkot supporter, said “the most important thing is the establishment of a national inquiry because that’s where our healing will come from.”
Lisa Tortor said she hoped Netanyahu would go and “they can form a new government and do some of the repairing of the damage that Bibi has done for Jews all over the world and for Israel, and Israel’s image.” Bibi is Netanyahu’s nickname.
