World News
NewsOnScale Staff
October 27, 2026
Israelis are voting today in what many call the most consequential election in the country's history. The polls close tonight. Exit results are expected within hours. A final verdict may take weeks.
The race is between Benjamin Netanyahu — the longest-serving Prime Minister in Israeli history, currently on trial for corruption, facing domestic questions over the intelligence failures that allowed October 7 — and Gadi Eisenkot, a former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces whose son Gal was killed fighting in Gaza during the war Netanyahu's government prosecuted.
A father running against the man he holds partly responsible for the war that killed his son. That is the personal dimension of this election that gets lost in the seat projections.
What the polls show
The latest polling puts Eisenkot's centrist Yashar party at approximately 23 seats and Netanyahu's Likud at 21 — though polls on pro-Netanyahu channels show a reversed picture. What every poll agrees on is that neither bloc is close to the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset.
Netanyahu's coalition — Likud, two far-right parties led by Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, and two ultra-Orthodox parties — is projected at 49 to 55 seats. Eisenkot's opposition bloc is projected at 54. A parliamentary deadlock is the most likely outcome regardless of who comes first.
Israel has held five elections since 2019. Each produced a deadlock. Each required months of coalition negotiations. The possibility of a sixth election within a year cannot be ruled out.
The turnout number
By 2 p.m. local time 44.9% of eligible voters had cast ballots — the highest turnout recorded at that hour since 1973. Among Israel Defense Forces service members the figure was even higher at 48%.
The 1973 comparison is significant. That was the year of the Yom Kippur War — a surprise attack on Israel that killed 2,600 soldiers and exposed massive intelligence failures. The parallels to October 7 are not lost on Israeli voters.
High turnout in Israeli elections tends to favor opposition parties over the incumbent. The people most motivated to vote today are the families of hostages still in Gaza, the families of soldiers killed in the war, and Israelis who hold Netanyahu personally responsible for the intelligence and policy failures that made October 7 possible.
What Netanyahu tried to do the day before the election
Netanyahu reportedly sought to launch fresh military action against Iran the day before the election — encountering resistance from his own military chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir. Opposition leader Eisenkot criticized what he called attempts to involve the military in election politics.
A sitting prime minister attempting to launch a military strike on Iran the day before voters decide his fate is not a small detail. It is either a genuine security decision that happened to coincide with election eve or it is an attempt to create a security crisis that would benefit the incumbent. His own military pushed back. That pushback becoming public tells you something about how the military leadership views the motivation.
What Eisenkot represents
Gadi Eisenkot served as Chief of Staff of the IDF from 2015 to 2019. He is not a peacenik or a dove. He is a career military officer who spent his professional life preparing Israel for the threats Netanyahu claims to be uniquely qualified to manage.
His central argument is simple — Netanyahu had 15 years to prevent October 7 and he failed. The intelligence community was aware of Hamas's capabilities and intentions. The border was understaffed. The kibbutzim were left exposed. 1,200 people were killed. Over 250 were taken hostage. His son was among the soldiers sent to fight in the war that followed.
Eisenkot does not oppose Israel's security needs. He opposes the man he believes has been managing them incompetently while using security threats to avoid accountability for his corruption trials and political failures.
What happens next
Polls close tonight Israel time. Exit polls will be published immediately after closing. Initial results come within hours but the final count and coalition negotiations will take weeks.
If Eisenkot's bloc comes first without a majority Netanyahu will attempt to block coalition formation and potentially force a sixth election — a well-documented tactic from his previous terms. If Netanyahu's bloc somehow reaches 61 seats the far-right partners who make that possible will extract a significant policy price including judicial reform measures that have already brought millions of Israelis into the streets.
The most likely scenario is a narrow Eisenkot plurality, weeks of coalition negotiations, and a government that comes together without Netanyahu for the first time since 2021 — or falls apart trying.
A man whose son died in the war is trying to replace the man who started it. The highest turnout since 1973 suggests Israeli voters understand what is at stake.
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