Benjamin Netanyahu looked set to remain Israel’s caretaker prime minister after unexpectedly strong support among Jewish voters left his opponents with little prospect of unseating him, despite his right-wing bloc falling short of a parliamentary majority.
With nearly 86% of votes counted on Wednesday, Israel’s three main broadcasters projected that Netanyahu’s bloc of right-wing, far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties would win 53 seats in the 120-member Knesset, ahead of the 48 projected for the opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot.
Parties representing Arab Israelis were projected to win a record 19 seats, leaving Eisenkot with little realistic path to power without substantial support from them — a prospect many Jewish political leaders oppose.
The results could still change as counting continued, but the anti-Netanyahu opposition, which spans the centre-left to the hard right, had fallen short of pre-election polls that forecast a close race.
Netanyahu will remain caretaker prime minister during coalition negotiations and potentially until another election next year. Although a caretaker government faces certain constraints, it retains significant powers, including authority over the war with Iran.
Guy Lurie, a research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, said a caretaker government formally held the same powers as a regular government but was also subject to a “duty of restraint” and had less discretion in some areas.
Addressing supporters of his Likud party after 3am (0100 GMT), Netanyahu called for the formation of “a strong, right-wing national government”.
He highlighted Israel’s military successes and raised the prospect of renewed joint military action against Iran alongside his ally, US President Donald Trump. He said the two countries had a “singular historical opportunity” to eliminate what he described as the Iranian threat “once and for all”.
Trump, who had urged Israeli voters to keep Netanyahu in power so the two leaders could “finish the job” in Iran, said Netanyahu had done “very well” and claimed his endorsement had “helped him a lot”.
Israel’s high-turnout election drew little attention in parts of the wider Middle East, where the conflict with Iran continued to shape public sentiment.
In Tehran, banners featuring slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reminded Iranians of the US and Israeli strikes launched in February that triggered the war. Nearby, a poster showed late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in Lebanon in an Israeli strike ordered by Netanyahu.
“I genuinely see the possibility of attack,” said Abdollah Karimi, a 50-year-old Iranian citizen.
Frustration was also evident in Egypt, the first Arab country to make peace with Israel in 1979.
Outhman Selim, a 62-year-old lawyer, said his hopes that a Netanyahu defeat would steer Israel away from the far right had been dashed.
Eisenkot acknowledged that Netanyahu would remain caretaker prime minister but warned against using security concerns for political purposes.
“I call on the heads of the security establishment and the civil service: Netanyahu is a caretaker prime minister, without a mandate or the people’s trust,” he said. “Stand firm in the face of any attempt to challenge you.”
Netanyahu’s office has previously rejected accusations that he was exploiting the conflict with Iran for political gain. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
The prospect of a caretaker government without a parliamentary majority unsettled Israeli financial markets. The shekel weakened by around 1.6% to 3.10 against the US dollar, while Tel Aviv’s benchmark TA-35 and TA-125 stock indexes fell by more than 3%.
The results underscored the rightward shift among Israeli Jews during Netanyahu’s years as the country’s dominant political figure. The centre-left, which dominated Israeli politics during the first half of the country’s history, has been reduced to a small fringe.
Nearly all Jewish parties now share Netanyahu’s opposition to an eventual independent Palestinian state, which has been central to internationally backed peace efforts since the 1990s.
The election was Israel’s first since Hamas-led fighters killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in attacks on October 7, 2023, triggering wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.
The war in Gaza has devastated the territory, killing 74,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, and left Israel increasingly isolated internationally.
Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague on war crimes charges, which he has dismissed as absurd. He also faces corruption charges in Israel, which he has described as an establishment plot.
Voter turnout reached 77.7%, the highest in more than two decades, with particularly strong participation among Israelis of Palestinian descent, who make up more than a fifth of the population. Many were motivated by what they regard as overt racism from Netanyahu’s cabinet, which includes a party leader convicted of inciting racial hatred against Arabs.
The headquarters of the Joint List, an alliance of several Arab parties, erupted in whistles and applause after exit polls were released.
“We refuse the occupation and racism, and we will remain here,” said Joint List candidate Faten Gattas.
The coalition that previously ousted Netanyahu relied on the support of one small Arab party. But Eisenkot’s weaker-than-expected performance means the opposition would now need backing from the Joint List itself to have a realistic chance of forming a government.
Most Jewish political leaders have avoided formal alliances with Arab parties since Israel’s founding.