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Israel votes on Tuesday, 27 October 2026, to elect all 120 members of the Knesset. The Library of Congress says the Knesset was dissolved on 17 July, which started the electoral process, and that the date falls on the third Tuesday of the Hebrew month of Heshvan. It also notes that this is the first election since 1988 to take place on its originally scheduled date under law.
Israel uses proportional representation, so no party has ever won an outright majority. A governing coalition needs at least 61 seats. Al Jazeera, in its 25 October explainer, says parties must negotiate alliances after the vote, and that Knesset members then choose the prime minister. If no leader can assemble enough support, another election could follow, and Netanyahu would remain caretaker prime minister until a new administration takes office.
The race is organised into two main camps. Netanyahu’s side is Likud and its religious-nationalist partners, including Jewish Power, Religious Zionism, Shas and United Torah Judaism. The opposition includes four parties that have signed a non-aggression pact: Yashar, led by Gadi Eisenkot, The Democrats, Yisrael Beytenu, and the Together alliance of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid. Al Jazeera also lists the Joint List and Ra’am as Palestinian-led parties.
Al Jazeera cites what it calls recent polling, without naming the pollster, that puts the opposition bloc at 52 seats and Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist alliance at 50. The Joint List and Ra’am together are put at about 13. Neither main bloc reaches 61 on those figures, so the result will depend on alliances and on how the smaller parties fare. Because the pollster is not named, the numbers should be read as indicative only.
The final days of the campaign have been heated. On 25 October, Eisenkot addressed a rally in Tel Aviv and warned that Netanyahu would “stop at nothing” to stay in power, according to The Times of Israel’s live blog. The same day, Channel 12 reported what it described as an unprecedented confrontation between Netanyahu and IDF chief Eyal Zamir, who was reportedly resisting a political order for military action related to Iran before the vote. Netanyahu dismissed the report as nonsense and denied any fight with the army chief. Opposition leaders Avigdor Liberman and Yair Lapid responded sharply, the blog reports.
Haaretz’s live coverage on the same day carries a headline saying the IDF has announced a general closure of the West Bank for Palestinians on election day. The coverage reviewed does not give the closure’s hours, its scope or the reason given, so those details are not confirmed here.
Why it matters: the result will decide who leads Israel’s next government at a time when the war and Iran policy are central issues in the campaign. Because no bloc is likely to win a majority alone, the coalition talks that follow may matter as much as the vote itself.
Several things remain unknown. The final seat counts, turnout and whether any bloc can reach 61 are not yet known. The terms of any alliance, the reported dispute between Netanyahu and the military chief, and the details of the West Bank closure are also unconfirmed.
Sources
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