Arab-Led Bloc Projected at 18 Knesset Seats as Israeli Turnout Hits 77.7%

Voters in Israel queued in long lines Tuesday as overall participation reached 77.7 percent, the Central Elections Committee's highest figure since 1999. Channel 12 reported early indications that turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel ran near 80 percent, also breaking the 1999 record.

Exit polls project the Arab-led Joint List and Ra'am together holding 18 seats in the 120-member Knesset, a record for those lists. Palestinian citizens of Israel make up about 21 percent of Israel's 10 million people and have historically voted at lower rates than Jewish Israelis.

Updated figures showed the opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar party tied at 51 seats with the bloc led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud. Mansour Abbas, leader of Ra'am, said he hopes final results let the anti-Netanyahu bloc, including his party, reach the 61 seats needed to form a government. "With the numbers we have now, there is no government," Abbas told Channel 12. Ra'am holds five seats now and sat in the coalition that governed Israel from 2021 to 2022.

Government formation could prove difficult for parties such as Eisenkot's, said Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli ambassador, because those parties pledged during the campaign not to enter coalitions with Arab parties. "There's a price to pay," Pinkas said, adding that Arab-led lists will make demands a Jewish-led coalition may not support.

Netanyahu and his far-right coalition made last-minute pushes Tuesday to rally supporters, pointing to rising turnout among Palestinian citizens. Arab politicians called the tactic racist and inflammatory. Witnesses said cars carrying Likud flags drove through Jerusalem playing the Islamic call to prayer through loudspeakers, urging people to vote because "Arabs are voting." Netanyahu posted on social media about long lines at polling stations in Arab communities and shared an image he said showed Arab voters, including women in the niqab, waiting to vote. "If we don't wake up now, we'll find ourselves with a government of Mansour Abbas and Ahmad Tibi," he said.

Reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera's Nour Odeh called the vote "an existential moment for Palestinian-Israelis." She said turnout drew in even voters who usually boycott elections, and noted the Knesset has passed more than 100 laws discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel, who also face discrimination in receiving state funds.