With 84% of ballots counted on October 28, 2026, the bloc aligned with Benjamin Netanyahu holds 54 seats and the opposition change bloc reaches 49, both below the 61 required by the 120-seat Knesset, according to The Guardian's count.

The parliamentary election of October 27 was defined by unusually high turnout in localities with a Palestinian majority. Al Jazeera reports that some municipalities exceeded 70% turnout, against a historical range of 45% to 65% in recent elections. That vote translated into 17 seats for the two Israeli Palestinian parties, a figure that reshapes the arithmetic of any coalition. Israeli Palestinian parties represent close to 20% of the population. For Mexico the channel is the price of crude: the geopolitical risk premium in the Middle East passes through to the blend Pemex sells and to the gasoline the country imports.

The breakdown leaves Netanyahu's bloc at 54 seats and the change bloc at 49, with the Palestinian parties at 17. The count places Likud and Yashar as the two most-voted forces, with the Joint List in third place. The joint list contributes at least 11 seats, and Ra'am is the other relevant partner. The sum of the Jewish opposition parties with the Palestinian ones reaches 66 seats, enough for a majority. Gadi Eisenkot, leader of Yashar, conditions the alliance on the Arab parties recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. Most of the forces in the change bloc rejected that partnership during the campaign. There is precedent: in 2021 Mansour Abbas brought Ra'am into a coalition government with Naftali Bennett.

After the official results are published, the consultations with the Israeli president to designate the person who will form the government mark the next milestone on the calendar. The final composition of the coalition sets the tone of Israeli foreign policy toward the region and the pulse of energy markets in the coming months.

This article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.