Yair Golan, the head of Israel's main left-wing party, called on Wednesday for his opposition allies to work with Arab parties to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as partial election results showed their support would be crucial to reaching a governing coalition.
"We must no longer accept Netanyahu's racist division between Jewish votes and Arab votes," he said on X. "We have a responsibility. And we have an opportunity to form a government of change in partnership with Israel's Arab citizens (Palestinian Israelis)."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc was projected to win 54 seats in the 120-member Knesset, seven short of a governing majority, after 72.4 percent of votes were counted in Israel’s parliamentary elections, according to Israeli media.
The opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot was projected to secure 48 seats, while predominantly Arab parties were projected to win 18 seats, according to the daily Times of Israel, citing the Central Elections Committee.
Neither major bloc was projected to reach the 61 seats needed for a parliamentary majority. However, the combined projected tally for Eisenkot’s bloc and the Arab parties could exceed that threshold.
The predominantly Arab Joint List was projected to win 12 seats, while the United Arab List (Ra’am) was expected to secure four.
Among individual parties, Netanyahu’s Likud was projected to lead with 28 seats, followed by Eisenkot’s Yashar with 21.
The Together alliance was expected to secure 11.
The Democrats, United Torah Judaism and Yisrael Beiteinu were each projected to win eight seats, while Shas and Otzma Yehudit were expected to secure seven each.
Religious Zionism was projected to win six seats.
The results remain provisional and may change as vote counting continues.
