Can Eisenkot build a government after Netanyahu lost his ultra-Orthodox ally?

Ra'am, with 8 seats, and the Joint List, with 11, have recommended Gadi Eisenkot. Media reports put 67 of the 120 members behind him, but Eisenkot ruled out working with those parties during the campaign, so the endorsements do not guarantee a partnership.

United Torah Judaism, the ultra-Orthodox party that backed Netanyahu, recommended no one. Its legislator Isaac Pindrus said: In any government that will be formed, our immediate point will be the resolution of the status of Torah students. Netanyahu kept the military service exemption for religious students; Eisenkot has insisted on ending it.

Netanyahu's bloc holds 53 seats and Eisenkot's opposition 48, and neither reaches a majority of the 120 seats. Failure could mean another election, Israel's seventh since 2019.