Likud accuses Arab parties of stealing Israel's election as no bloc reaches 61 seats

Count leaves neither bloc with a majority

Israelis voted on Tuesday, 27 October 2026, in the first elections held after the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023 and Israel's subsequent campaign in Gaza. By Wednesday, with 88.6% of votes counted, Likud, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, remained the largest party. Partial figures gave the right-wing bloc 53 seats and the centre bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party, 48 seats, in a 120-seat Knesset where at least 61 are needed to form a government. The Arab parties, the Joint List and Ra'am, together won 19 seats according to HotNews and G4Media, although AFP reporting carried by Romanian outlets put them at 17. The vote is widely described as a referendum on Netanyahu's leadership, and the Arab parties now hold the balance.

Netanyahu-led bloc53

Eisenkot-led centre bloc48

Arab parties combined19

Netanyahu-led bloc

53 seats

Eisenkot-led centre bloc

48 seats

Arab parties combined

19 seats

Data from the article text

Likud alleges fraud by Arab parties

On Wednesday, 28 October, Likud said the election had been stolen by Arab parties that it accused of backing terrorism and the destruction of the Jewish state. The party said it had passed hundreds of testimonies and pieces of evidence to the police, the Shin Bet internal security service and the Central Elections Committee (CEC), covering alleged corruption, threats, violence, forgery and banned software used to push voters. It asked for a thorough investigation, prosecutions of those it believes are guilty and immediate CEC action on the claims. Netanyahu had already said on election day that three senior officials from Raam were arrested in southern Israel carrying envelopes of cash. The acting CEC director general, Dean Livneh, described an unusual case in which police arrested people trying to buy votes before the polls closed, but said no other incident of that kind had been reported nationwide. Raam leader Mansour Abbas accused Netanyahu of lying about the fraud claims.

Trump claims credit as coalition talks loom

Donald Trump, returning to Joint Base Andrews near Washington from an election event in Texas, said shortly after midnight Eastern time, before the count was settled, that he had heard Netanyahu had done much better than expected. He said it was too early to draw conclusions and that he had not yet spoken with Netanyahu. Shortly afterwards he reposted on Truth Social a statement from a man named Irving C. Schwartz arguing that a close result, or even a victory for Netanyahu, followed Trump's endorsement. The post first appeared without attribution, which led many readers to believe the words were Trump's own. Coverage says Trump wants an Israeli government that helps him meet his regional goals, even if that sidelines ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

Coalition paths and the timetable

Israeli President Isaac Herzog urged the parties to make every effort to avoid a new election and said he expected all of them to come to consultations with an open attitude. Official results are to be presented by Supreme Court judge Noam Sohlberg in the week of 2 November 2026, after which Herzog will begin talks with each party represented in the Knesset. A POLITICO analysis sets out four scenarios, the first of which is Netanyahu winning over some parties in Eisenkot's camp, with former prime minister Naftali Bennett and former defence minister Avigdor Lieberman named as possible targets despite their campaigns against him. A second scenario is an Eisenkot minority government. Arab parties could also be drawn into the process, since Joint List leader Youssef Jabareen has said that any credible alternative to Netanyahu's government would have to deal with his party. By Wednesday, the Eisenkot camp had not made any public statement backing a coalition.