Israel's 2026 Election: How Voting Works, Who's Running and the Key Issues

On October 27, Israelis vote for the 26th Knesset. It is the first general election since the war in Gaza and the conflicts in Lebanon and Iran, and the sixth nationwide vote since 2019. According to Israel's Central Elections Committee, about 7.3 million people aged 18 and over are eligible to cast ballots.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest-serving leader in Israel's history with 19 years in office, is seeking another term while still facing trial on corruption charges he denies. His Likud party and the right-wing bloc it leads are in a tight race with an opposition bloc headed by major Jewish-rooted parties. Neither side has shown it can win an outright majority in the 120-seat parliament.

How voting works

Israelis vote for parties, not individual candidates. A party must clear a 3.25% threshold to enter the Knesset, and a parliamentary term runs four years. There is no term limit for prime minister.

To form a government, a coalition needs 61 of the 120 seats, but no party has ever won an outright majority. Finishing first in the vote count does not guarantee the right to form a government either. After the election, parties have 28 days to negotiate a coalition, with a possible extension of up to 14 more days. If no one succeeds, the country must vote again.

Seats are allocated in proportion to each party's nationwide share of the vote. Ballots for parties below the 3.25% threshold are discarded, which explains why small parties often merge ahead of elections.

Who can vote — and who cannot

About 7.3 million Israeli citizens are eligible to vote, but they are not the only adults living under the government they are choosing. Roughly three million Palestinian adults in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem have no vote for the government that controls their borders, their movement and their legal status.

Jewish Israeli citizens and about 1.2 million Palestinian citizens of Israel can vote. Adult settlers among the more than 750,000 Israelis living in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem can also vote, helping elect the legislature for the land they live on.

Most Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem hold residency rights rather than citizenship. They can vote in Jerusalem municipal elections but not for the Knesset. The disparity is stark in the occupied West Bank, where a settler can vote while a Palestinian family living nearby, under the same military authority, cannot.

Most Israeli citizens abroad also cannot vote, because Israel has no broad absentee-ballot system and requires voters to be in the country on election day. The exceptions are diplomats and state envoys, who cast ballots at Israeli missions on October 20.

The main issues

In this election, Israeli voters are weighing a long list of domestic and foreign-policy concerns:

• The October 7 security failure: Three years after the events of October 7, 2023, the government has still not set up a state commission of inquiry. The Hamas-led attack killed about 1,200 people and took some 250 hostages; Israel then launched the war in Gaza, which has killed at least 74,000 people and devastated most of the besieged territory.
• Haredi military exemptions: Supporters say the exemptions protect full-time Torah study, while opponents argue they place an unfair military burden on everyone else.
• Judicial reform: Netanyahu's effort to curb the power of the Supreme Court, which triggered mass protests before the Gaza war, remains a deep fault line. Opponents see it as a threat to democracy, while supporters say the court has overreached.
• War and security: The public wants stability but remains wary of concessions in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon. Netanyahu once promised "total victory," but Hamas and Hezbollah remain active.
• Cost of living: High prices and modest wages are being squeezed further by soaring defense spending. Since 2023, Israel's defense budget has doubled, putting pressure on public finances.

The outgoing government

When the Knesset dissolved in July, Netanyahu's coalition held 60 of the 120 seats: Likud 32, Shas 11, Religious Zionism 7, Itamar Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit 6 and New Hope 4. Shas left the government in July 2025 but remains part of the coalition, while New Hope is merging into Likud for this election.

The opposition bloc held 59 seats: Yesh Atid 24, Blue and White 8, United Torah Judaism 7, Yisrael Beiteinu 6, Hadash-Taal and Raam five each, and Labor 4. Noam's single seat was unaligned.

The main players

Netanyahu is running again while on trial over corruption charges he denies. His right-wing alliance faces a bloc of four major Jewish-rooted opposition parties whose leaders have signed a declaration pledging not to attack one another before the election and to join forces to form a government once results are in.

Former military Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot is seen as the opposition's most likely candidate for prime minister, with his new Yashar party level with Likud in the polls. The opposition alliance also includes the Together list led by former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beiteinu and Yair Golan's Democrats.

Other key figures include right-wing ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, the ultra-Orthodox parties, and the majority-Arab lists Raam and Joint List. In September, Israel's Central Elections Committee voted to bar Raam and the Joint List from the election, but on October 2 the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the decision, ruling that the evidence did not meet the legal threshold for exclusion.

Sami Abu Shehadeh, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who leads the Balad faction within the Joint List, withdrew from the race after the court signaled that a majority of justices would uphold his exclusion. Arab-led parties could hold the balance of power after the vote, but most leaders of the Jewish-rooted opposition bloc have ruled out working with them.

The sixth election in seven years

October 27 will be Israel's sixth national vote since 2019, but the first time in 38 years that a Knesset term has run its full four years.

The instability began in April 2019, when Netanyahu's Likud and Benny Gantz's Blue and White tied at 35 seats each. A second vote in September of that year produced another deadlock, with Blue and White on 33 and Likud on 32, and neither round produced a majority coalition. A third election in March 2020 gave Likud 36 seats to Blue and White's 33, leading to a Netanyahu-Gantz unity government that collapsed within a year.

In March 2021, Likud won 30 seats to Yesh Atid's 17, but an eight-party coalition led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, including the Arab Raam party, ended Netanyahu's 12 years in power. That coalition lasted a year.

Netanyahu returned in November 2022, with Likud on 32 seats and Yesh Atid on 24, heading what was described as the most right-wing government in Israel's history. Current polls show no bloc clearly reaching 61 seats.

Israel's prime ministers

The State of Israel has had 14 prime ministers since its founding in 1948. Netanyahu is the longest-serving, with 19 years across three periods: 1996-1999, 2009-2021 and 2022 to the present. Only David Ben-Gurion, who led the country from 1948 to 1954 and from 1955 to 1963, comes close in time in office.

Whatever the outcome on October 27, Netanyahu remains caretaker prime minister until a new government is sworn in.