It’s 7am in Israel, meaning voting has now begun in the country’s first parliamentary election since the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 that shook the country and plunged the Middle East into turmoil.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hold on power is at stake, with centrist rivals promising to usher in a new era.

Voting runs until 10pm, Israeli TV channels will air exit polls giving the first indications of the outcome.

But it could take days or even weeks for the final result of the election to become clear if no party or group has an outright majority.

The final tally is expected by 30 October and official election results are formally published a week after the election, on 4 November.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a fight for his political survival in today’s election, with voters weighing his leadership after the 2023 Hamas-led 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.

Netanyahu is campaigning on his wartime leadership and his alliance with US president Donald Trump, who has endorsed him and joined Israel in waging war on Iran. He 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.

Polls open from 7am to 10pm.

The IDF has deployed more than 850 military polling stations — including mobile ballot units operating inside active operational zones in the West Bank, southern Lebanon, southwestern Syria, and Gaza — ahead of Tuesday’s national election.

Around 3,000 soldiers, mainly young conscripts, are serving as polling station staff, according to the military.

Around 25 percent of the stations are mobile, designed to reach outposts, bases, and remote deployments beyond Israel’s borders so combat troops and reservists can cast ballots under strict double-envelope secrecy rules.

Early military voting commenced last Wednesday and runs through the close of national polls at 10:00 PM on Tuesday.

Turnout among Israel’s 1.2 million eligible Palestinian citizens could determine whether either major political bloc can form a government following Tuesday’s elections.

Polls suggest Arab turnout could reach 60 percent, with grassroots organisers pushing for a 70 percent surge — a level unseen in decades that could lift the Joint List and Ra’am to a combined 15 seats. Such a spike would raise the overall vote threshold, threatening smaller fringe factions on both ends of the political spectrum.

The surge follows a contentious pre-election battle in which the High Court of Justice overturned a Central Elections Committee ban on the Arab slates, while disqualifying Balad leader Sami Abu Shehadeh over comments describing the October 7 attacks as an “important historical event.”

While both major Jewish coalitions have publicly ruled out partnering with the Arab lists, their final seat share could effectively deny either bloc a workable 61-seat majority. (edited)

With voting less than 24 hours away, consensus across major Israeli broadcasters points toward another parliamentary impasse, with neither Netanyahu’s right-religious coalition nor the opposition bloc holding a clear path to a 61-seat majority.

Across final weekend polls from Channel 12, KAN 11, and Maariv, Netanyahu’s loyalist bloc — comprising Likud, Otzma Yehudit, Shas, United Torah Judaism, and the Religious Zionist alliance — averages in at roughly 49 to 50 seats.

The primary opposition bloc, led by Gadi Eiskenkot stands between 54 and 56 seats, leaving the remainder split among Arab parties and unaligned factions who refuse to sit with either side.

The ultimate balance of power will hinge on whether fringe lists — including the joint Reservists-Economic ticket and Ofer Winter’s Amcha Yisrael list — can clear the 3.25 percent electoral threshold needed to enter the Knesset.

Benjamin Netanyahu boasted of his endorsement from Donald Trump on the eve of Israel’s election, suggesting the two leaders could restart their war against Iran if he wins.

Netanyahu said on Sunday that Trump was willing to take action “that would finally, finally, remove the Iranian threat”, but only as long as Netanyahu himself remains in power.

“And I have already instructed the Mossad and the IDF (military) to bring down this regime, to bring down this regime because that is the only way to put an end to this threat,” Netanyahu said, referring to Israel’s main intelligence service and military.

But asked for comment on Netanyahu’s remarks, White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said: “The United States will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the midterm elections.”

Exclusive: A poll of 4,000 Israelis shows that it is unlikely that Netanyahu’s bloc will hold on to power when the country votes

Israel’s in frontier kibbutz Be’eri said on the eve of the election that politics have shifted “two clicks to the right” since the October 7 attacks three years ago.

One-in-ten residents in the community were among the 1,200 people killed in Hamas’ surprise attack. Dozens were among the 251 taken hostage to Gaza. It was Israel’s deadliest single day.

A collective community established in 1946, now with around 1,000 residents, Be’eri exemplifies the socialist values that dominated Israel’s politics in its early decades.

Nearly all its votes went to the centre-left in the previous 2022 election, when only around 4% voted for parties in Netanyahu’s nationalist-religious coalition.

But ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Gal Cohen said the attack has made residents question longstanding views that there could be peace with the Palestinians in this generation.

“Everyone in Be’eri has made two clicks to the right. But I still think that most of us will stay with the opposition, the parties that want to replace this government,” he said.

Former military chief Eisenkot has presented himself as one of the possible outlets for change.

Eisenkot, who lost a son in Gaza, has projected an image as a political outsider and security hawk whose humble background and family sacrifices stand in vivid contrast to Netanyahu’s decades in high office and ‌lingering corruption cases.

Both Eisenkot and Netanyahu, along with the leaders of nearly all other Jewish-led parties, oppose the establishment of a future independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

They both say that Israel must retain ultimate security control over all territory between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea. And they agree that Israeli troops must not withdraw from Gaza until Hamas is disarmed.

Eisenkot has framed the continued rule of Hamas in Gaza as a failure of state, vowing that within 18 months of taking office he would ensure the administration had been replaced, either through a US-brokered plan or through military force.

But to unseat Netanyahu, he is likely to rely on the support of the Democrats, including the rump of the once dominant centre-left Labour Party that has has withered as the country has shifted to the right.

Netanyahu heads into this election with 19 accumulated years in office since he was first chosen as prime minister in 1996.

The office has no term limits and a prime minister can serve an unlimited number of four-year terms so long as they maintain the confidence of a majority in the Knesset, or parliament.

Since his last election in 2022, ‘Bibi’ has led Israel through its response to the October 7 Hamas attacks, the subsequent war in Gaza and hostage crisis, a ground invasion of Lebanon, strikes on Syria, attacks from and against Iran, and, most recently, into the ongoing conflict with Tehran alongside the United States.

Domestically, he is still embroiled in a long-running corruption case, after being indicted in 2019 on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three cases, accused of receiving expensive gifts in exchange for political favours. The 77-year-old has called the case a witch hunt and proceedings stalled during the war in Gaza.

Netanyahu is also under an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for suspected crimes against humanity and war crimes, and faces criticism from abroad for presiding over a rapid expansion of settlements in the West Bank.

Many Israelis now say it is time for a change in the seat of government. A poll of 4,000 Israeli voters this month predicted that Netanyahu’s Likud party would secure only 19 seats, down from 32 currently, while the opposition, led by Yashar’s Gadi Eisenkot, could secure the most with 20.