Israel Election Results: Netanyahu Bloc Leads With 53 Seats After 91% of Votes Counted

As of Thursday morning, October 29, Israel's Central Election Committee has released preliminary results for the 26th Knesset elections, with approximately 91% of votes tallied. Out of 5,183,415 votes counted, 5,160,522 were deemed valid. The preliminary distribution of Knesset seats shows Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc securing 53 mandates, the opposition agreement parties led by Gadi Eisenkot obtaining 48 mandates, and two Arab parties collectively receiving 19 mandates. This distribution remains consistent with the previous count when 90.5% of votes were processed.

Detailed seat allocations based on the current count and residual vote agreements include: Likud (Benjamin Netanyahu) with 26 seats, Yashar (Gadi Eisenkot) with 21 seats, the United List with 11 seats, Bayahad (Naftali Bennett) with 12 seats, Democrats (Yair Golan) with 8 seats, Ra'am (Mansour Abbas) with 8 seats, Yisrael Beiteinu (Avigdor Lieberman) with 7 seats, United Torah Judaism (Yaakov Asher) with 7 seats, Otzma Yehudit (Itamar Ben-Gvir) with 7 seats, Shas (Aryeh Deri) with 7 seats, and Religious Zionism and Zehut (Bezalel Smotrich and Moshe Feiglin) with 6 seats. The United List lost one seat while Ra'am gained one, but the total for the Arab parties remains 19.

Parties failing to cross the electoral threshold of 3.25% include "Miluimnikim ve'Kalkalit" (Yoaz Hendel and Yaron Zelicha) with 2.63% of the vote, and "Amcha Israel" (Ofer Winter) with 1.60%. Should these parties surpass the threshold after the remaining votes are counted, the seat distribution among parliamentary parties could change.

The bloc of parties aligned with Netanyahu (Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism, Otzma Yehudit, and Religious Zionism) collectively holds 53 seats. The four opposition parties (Yashar, Bayahad, Yisrael Beiteinu, and Democrats) have 48 seats, while the two Arab parties (United List and Ra'am) hold 19 seats. This totals 120 seats, with neither major bloc reaching the 61 seats required for a parliamentary majority.

Turnout for the October 27 election was 77.7%, with 5,695,682 people participating out of 7,331,981 eligible voters. Updated results, including votes from double envelopes (military personnel, disabled voters, hospital patients, prisoners, etc.), are expected around noon on Thursday, October 29. These votes could potentially alter the final seat distribution, particularly for parties near the electoral threshold. The final official results are due by November 4, 2026.