Partial results of the vote count in the Israeli elections, early Wednesday, showed a sharp convergence between the camp of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition parties, after about 16.8 percent of the total votes of voters were counted. According to data from the Elections Committee published by the "Yedioth Ahronoth" newspaper website until 03:45 local time, Netanyahu's camp received 50.4 percent of the votes counted, compared to 49.6 percent for the rest of the parties.
In numbers, Netanyahu's camp received about 479.9 thousand votes, compared to 472.2 thousand for the rest of the parties, a difference of about 7.7 thousand votes. The data showed the completion of counting 2,419 ballot boxes out of 11,996 boxes, equivalent to 20.2 percent of the total boxes. The number of valid votes counted reached 952 thousand and 50 votes, while the total number of votes counted, including invalid ones, reached 956 thousand and 458 votes out of a total of 5 million and 695 thousand and 682 votes.
Likud Leads and Poll Results
At the party level, the Likud party led by Netanyahu topped the partial results with 24.1 percent of the votes, compared to 16.1 percent for the "Yesh Atid" party led by Gadi Eisenkot. The "Yamina" list led by Naftali Bennett received 8.8 percent, followed by "Yisrael Beiteinu" with 6.9 percent, then "Shas" with 6.7 percent, and "United Torah Judaism" with 6.4 percent. The Joint List also received 5.9 percent, the Shas party 5.6 percent, "The Democrats" 5.6 percent, and "Religious Zionism" 5.4 percent.
As for the unified Arab list "Ra'am", it received 2.8 percent, raising the share of the two Arab lists, the Joint List and Ra'am, combined to 8.7 percent of the counted votes. The partial results come hours after updates from exit polls showed a significant convergence between the camps of Netanyahu and Eisenkot. Updates from samples of the Israeli Channel "13" and the Public Broadcasting Authority showed the two camps tied at 51 seats each, compared to 18 seats for the Arab lists.
Rise in Voting Turnout and Battle Details
In a later update from the sample of Channel "12", Netanyahu's camp received 52 seats, compared to 49 for Eisenkot's camp, while the Arab lists received 19 seats. The initial samples published immediately after the closing of polling stations on Tuesday evening showed an advance for Eisenkot's camp, without either camp obtaining the majority needed to form the government, which is 61 seats out of 120. The initial sample for the Public Broadcasting Authority and Channel "13" granted Netanyahu's camp 50 seats compared to 53 for Eisenkot's camp, while the initial sample for Channel "12" showed Netanyahu's camp receiving 50 seats compared to 52 for Eisenkot's camp.
On Tuesday evening, the Israeli Elections Committee announced that the voting rate reached 77.7 percent, an increase of 7.1 percent over the 2022 elections, and stated it was the highest since 1999. Polling stations closed at 10:00 PM local time (20:00 UTC), after which the vote counting process began. Exit poll samples do not represent the official results of the elections, while the vote counting process continues.
Source: Anadolu Agency
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