Israeli exit polls show huge Palestinian gains block Netanyahu from forming government

Joint List and Ra'am projected to take 18 seats, with the prime minister and opposition blocs set to gain 50 and 53 respectively

Supporters of the Joint List cheer at the alliance's campaign headquarters in the northern Israeli city of Nazareth on 27 October 2026, as the first exit polls are announced on television (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP)

Published date: 27 October 2026 20:09 GMT | Last update: 1 hour 46 min ago

Neither Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor the Zionist opposition parties have enough seats to form a government following a huge surge in voting from Palestinian citizens of Israel, exit polls suggested on Tuesday.

After polls closed at 10pm local time, public broadcaster Kan said Netanyahu’s bloc is projected to win 50 seats with the opposition set to take 53 - far short of a 61 seat majority.

The Joint List and Ra'am, two slates representing Palestinian citizens of Israel, are projected to pick up 18 seats, which would be a record number of Arab MPs in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.

It was clear througout polling day that turnout would be high in the first election since the Gaza genocide and various Israeli wars in the region since the 7 October Hamas-led attack.

Over the past four years, Palestinian citizens have watched the Israeli state lay waste to Gaza, violent settlers make life hell in the occupied West Bank and Israel's leaders and society become ever more disciminatory towards Arabs.

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On Tuesday, they voted in record numbers, with Palestinians telling Middle East Eye in the leadup to the election that they feared their very existence was at stake.

While the three main broadcasters differed somewhat in their projections, it was clear on Tuesday night that Palestinian citizens had upended the election and stopped Netanyahu and his Jewish supremacist allies from forming a government.

Eisenkot's bloc of opposition parties, meanwhile, appear unable to form a working coalition without the participation of Palestinian parties, despite many of his partners ruling that out during the campaign.

Palestinian citizens make up around 20 percent of Israel's population, but the parties that represent them are almost always frozen out of any governing coalitions.

For now, Netanyahu remains prime minister as a period of coalition-building negotiations begins.

His party, Likud, is projected to be the largest in the Knesset with around 25 seats, which traditionally means the president will offer him the first attempt at forming a government.

Gabi Eisenkot, the former military chief of staff leading the opposition bloc, said the election results show "lack of confidence" in Netanyahu.

Yair Lapid, another opposition leader and former prime minister, said Netanyahu suffered a "crushing defeat".

Final results could take days to finalise, with half a million votes from soldiers due to be counted later in the week.

Veteran political commentator Meron Rapoport declared the results "the end of the Netanyahu era".

"He cannot be the next prime minister, that’s 100 percent sure. His Likud party appears to be the largest in parliament but this has no meaning if his coalition is very far from the 61 seats needed to form a government,” he told Middle East Eye.

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“It is not clear what kind of government we will have. Maybe there will be new elections if no government can be formed.”

Rapoport noted that key opposition leaders Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman are very hostile to Palestinians and have ruled out sitting in a coalition with them.

“But putting ideology aside, if politicians see the chance to form a majority of 70 seats while Netanyahu has 50, I think they will be almost suicidal to go for another election that gives Netanyahu another chance.”

Ameer Fakhoury, an analyst at Israel's Vanleer Institute think tank, described the mobilisation of Palestinian citizens in this election a "truly historic development".

"They went to the polls in extraordinary numbers to confront a political leadership responsible for what they regard as the gravest crimes against their people: devastation in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and years of persecution and intimidation at home," he told MEE.

Fakhoury said the election results are not merely a question of replacing Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister. "It is a choice between perpetuating apartheid and beginning political and moral repair."

"History has placed Palestinian citizens of Israel in an extraordinary position. Having mobilised first and foremost to protect their own people, they may now also help rescue Jewish Israelis from their country's destructive trajectory," he said.

"The question is whether Jewish Israeli political leaders are prepared to accept that possibility - or prefer the continued descent into a militarized, ethnocratic Sparta."

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