We’ve ended this live briefing for the night. We will have another one on Wednesday. Here’s what happened today. • Exit polls show a dead heat in the race between Benjamin Netanyahu, the polarizing, right-wing prime minister, and his main rival, Benny Gantz, a newcomer to electoral politics who is seen as a centrist. Both men claimed victory. [Who is Benny Gantz?] • Official results may not come until early morning Israel time, late tonight in the U.S. It will then be up to President Reuven Rivlin to choose the party leader he believes has the best chance of assembling a parliamentary majority. • Regardless of who becomes the next prime minister, the election has already proven to be a humbling setback for Mr. Netanyahu, 69, who has built a strong economy, kept the country safe and has been promoted by President Trump. It has also placed Mr. Gantz’s new Blue and White party in the position of the main alternative to the right wing, a spot once held by the Labor party.<doc-sep>JERUSALEM (JTA) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party finished one seat behind main challenger Blue and White in the first exit poll results released at the close of voting in Israel on Tuesday. Blue and White, which is led by Benny Gantz, a former chief of staff for the Israel Defense Forces, took 37 seats in the upcoming Knesset, or parliament, according to the results from Israel’s Kan national broadcaster. Likud had 36 seats in that poll. Other polls had the parties further apart: Channel 12 reported that Blue and White had 37 seats and Likud 33, while Channel 13 had each party with 36. Paper ballots, each sealed in an envelope, will be counted throughout the night with more concrete results available by Wednesday morning. The first results came after an Election Day full of exaggerated claims and accusations. Israeli voters have learned to take the first exit poll results with a grain of salt, as the totals in recent elections have been highly inaccurate. That’s apparently because Israelis prefer not to tell pollsters for which party they cast their ballot. In 2015, the exit polls put Likud and the Zionist Union in a dead heat. When the official votes were tallied, however, Likud led by six seats. The votes of soldiers, prisoners, hospital patients, poll workers, on-duty police officers, and Israeli diplomats and officials working overseas are not counted until the day after the election, which in past elections has led to some shifts in the number of seats for parties. In the last election, those special ballots added up to over 280,000 votes, according to Haaretz. Israel does not have absentee ballots for citizens who live abroad or who are out of the country on Election Day. Both parties claimed victory. “We won!” Gantz and Yair Lapid, whose Yesh Atid party is part of Blue and White, said in a statement. “The Israeli public has had their say! Thank you to the thousands of activists and over a million voters. These elections have a clear winner and a clear loser. Netanyahu promised 40 seats and lost. The President can see the picture and should call on the winner to form the next government. There is no other option!” Netanyahu in a tweet focused on the total seats for the right-wing bloc. “The right-wing bloc led by Likud won a clear victory,” he said. “I thank the citizens of Israel for your trust. I will start assembling a right-wing government with our natural partners this very evening.” Parties on the right wing garnered a total of 64 seats according to the Kan poll. Among the totals were seven seats each for the Sephardic Orthodox Shas Party and the haredi United Torah Judaism; five seats each for the Union of Right-Wing parties, a coalition of the Jewish Home Party, Otzma Yehudit and the National Union Party, and the Kulanu party of Moshe Kahlon; four seats for the Yisrael Beiteinu party headed by former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman; and fewer than four seats for the New Right Party of Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked. The upstart Zehut, a quasi-libertarian and nationalist party headed by former Likud lawmaker Moshe Feiglin, did not appear to pass the electoral threshold, despite predictions that it would be an important piece of a coalition. The party supports completely legalizing marijuana. Parties on the left wing garnered a total of 56 seats. Among the totals were eight seats for the Labor Party; six seats for the Arab coalition of Hadash-Taal; and five seats for Meretz. The Arab coalition of Raam-Balad did not appear to cross the electoral threshold. Following reports during the day of extremely low voter turnout among Arab voters, leaders of the Arab community and of the left-wing parties worked to get out the vote in Arab cities and towns. It was also revealed that Likud placed some 1,200 cameras in polling stations in Arab communities, citing a fear of election fraud. Arab leaders said it was meant to intimidate voters. With no advertising permitted on Election Day, the parties took to social media and text messages to make their cases and get out the vote. A ruling government coalition must have at least 61 seats, and preferably more if it wants to pass legislation on a regular basis. A party must win at least 3.25 percent of the total vote in order to pass the threshold to enter the Knesset. Following the results, President Reuven Rivlin will meet with the heads of each party to find out with which candidate they would choose to form a government, and charge that person with forming one. Netanyahu, in an effort to strip votes from some of the smaller parties, told right-wing supporters on Sunday that if they chose to vote for a smaller right-wing party that Likud might not have enough votes for Rivlin to realistically allow Netanyahu to form the next government. Whether that is true remains to be seen. Also to sway right-wing voters, the prime minister vowed to consider annexing the West Bank if elected. There were some 6.3 million eligible Israeli voters and 10,000 polling stations across the country.<doc-sep>Share this Story: Exit polls, early results in Israel election suggest Netanyahu headed for another term Exit polls, early results in Israel election suggest Netanyahu headed for another term Both Netanyahu and challenger Benny Gantz claimed victory but all exit polls showed Netanyahu’s Likud party was in a stronger position to form a majority coalition Photo by Ariel Schalit/AP Article content TEL AVIV, Israel – After a bitter, roller-coaster campaign, Israelis went to bed Tuesday without a clear picture of whether longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would hold on to power in the face of corruption allegations and a strong challenger, but partial result suggested he would. Both Netanyahu and his challenger Benny Gantz claimed victory in speeches to raucous crowds at their neighboring campaign headquarters in Tel Aviv. We apologize, but this video has failed to load. tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Exit polls, early results in Israel election suggest Netanyahu headed for another term Back to video Exit polls conducted by Israeli television channels, however, all showed that Netanyahu and his Likud party were in a stronger position to form a majority coalition in the Knesset, or parliament. As the night went on, partial results also showed that Likud would win the largest number of seats – 37, compared with 36 for Gantz’s Blue and White party, according to results after 79 percent of the ballots were counted. “I want to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart. It’s an unbelievable, tremendous victory,” Netanyahu told his supporters, his wife, Sara, at his side. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content A few hours earlier, Gantz had told a flag-waving crowd that it was a “historic” day for Israel. “In elections, there are winners and losers, and we are the winners,” he said. “We won, and we will keep on winning.” More On This Topic As Israeli voters cast ballots, Netanyahu's political fate to be determined Netanyahu plays a 'Trump card' as Israeli elections near For American Jews, Trump is key figure in Israeli election What is certain is that Gantz, a former military chief of staff who entered politics late last year, has put up a formidable challenge, even if he fails to secure the position of prime minister. “He started his move three months ago, and it looks like he could have won as many seats as the Likud party that’s existed for more than 40 years,” said Meir Rubin, executive director of the right-wing Kohelet Policy Forum. “It’s an incredible achievement.” Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content But if Netanyahu prevails, that will be perhaps the greater political feat, given that Israel’s attorney general has recommended indicting the prime minister in three corruption cases, including on bribery, corruption and breach-of-trust charges, though Netanyahu has a chance to present his defense first. Netanyahu, a dominant force in Israeli politics for a quarter of a century and Israeli leader for a total of 13 years, had painted the election as a referendum on his leadership. He has been battling to win a new political mandate even as possible corruption allegations close in. If he forms a new government and survives until July, he will make hisstory, becoming the country’s longest-serving prime minister, outstripping Israel’s founding father David Ben-Gurion. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content In the coming days, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin will nominate the leader of the party with the majority of support to try to form a government. Rivlin will make this choice after consulting with parties that have won seats in the Knesset. Photo by Ariel Schalit/AP A potential complication could arise if Gantz wins a majority but does not have enough support from other parties to form a governing coalition. “Then the president faces a conundrum,” said Reuven Hazan, a political science professor at Hebrew University. The president can delay for up to seven days to give Gantz a chance to build support, he said. “But the name of the game is forming a majority.” If the election had been a straight referendum on Netanyahu, Gantz might have been in a better position to become prime minister, according to partial results and exit polls. But in Israel’s fragmented political system, about 40 party slates contested the election. To become prime minister, a party leader must cobble together a majority of at least 61 seats in the Knesset – so it is not necessarily the head of the party with the most seats that becomes prime minister. Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content The fate of Israel’s veteran leader could hinge ultimately on whether smaller right-wing parties, which would join a Netanyahu coalition, reach the 3.25 percent vote threshold required to enter the Knesset, the equivalent of winning around four seats. That includes the New Right party of right-wing Education Minister Naftali Bennett. At the same time, the vote total of the Arab Ram-Balad party is also hovering around the threshold level, and if that party succeeds in winning seats, it could stymie Netanyahu’s chance of forming a coalition Meanwhile, Moshe Feiglin, a libertarian pro-pot candidate who has says he’s open to joining either main party, was also hovering around the threshold. “The small parties will be the story of this election,” said Rubin. “They will change everything.” Advertisement Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content The small parties will be the story of this election, Israeli television stations broadcast dramatic countdowns to their exit polls, which the three main channels all released at 10 p.m., as soon as the polls closed.<doc-sep>Slideshow ( 6 images ) JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and challenger Benny Gantz both claimed victory in Tuesday’s election after exit polls predicted a parliamentary majority for rightist parties under the incumbent but a big showing for Gantz’s party. “We won! The Israeli public has had its say!” said Gantz’s centrist Blue and White party, which two out of three exit polls saw taking more seats than Netanyahu’s conservative Likud. A third exit poll predicted the two parties would be tied. However, two of the polls predicted that right-wing parties would together take more than 60 of parliament’s 120 seats, forming a bloc that Netanyahu could marshal to form the next coalition government. The third exit poll predicted this bloc would be tied with center-left parties tilted toward Gantz. “The rightist bloc led by Likud has won a clear victory,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “I will begin forming a right-wing government with our natural partner this very night.”<doc-sep>
Early exit polls are placing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party and former Israeli general Benny Gantz's Blue and White Alliance at a tie as numbers trickle in. With both parties neck and neck, some polls suggest that the Likud Party will win 36 seats versus to Blue and White's 37, others that Gantz's party may have four seats on Likud. Noting differing projections, Reuters has reported that Netanyahu may be on pace to securing his fifth term as the nation's prime minister, allowing him to become the longest-serving individual in that position. Gantz was the first to claim an election victory. — Anshel Pfeffer (@AnshelPfeffer) April 9, 2019 But Gantz wasn't the only politician calling a victory early on. Netanyahu, too, is claiming a "clear" election victory for the Likud Party. "I thank the citizens of Israel for the trust," he said in a tweet. "I will start by assembling a right government with our natural partners tonight." Gantz and journalist-turned-politician Yair Lapid joined forces in late February, creating the Blue and White Alliance in a bid to challenge the Likud Party. Both politicians have stated that they would rotate as prime ministers, with Gantz taking the first two and a half years if they were to win, Sputnik previously reported. Gideon Rahat, a political science professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, previously told Sputnik that while alliances rarely succeed, the Blue and White bloc could have a shot at winning if it were to win votes from the moderate right. "I think that basically, alliances in Israeli politics are not successful, because it is easier to get more seats by yourself and when you give voters more things to choose from… [But] if they would be able to get votes from soft-right, from moderate right, they can do it [win in the elections]," Rahat said. Netanyahu teamed up in late February with the far-right Habayit Hayehudi aka the "Jewish Home Party," which has been described as Israel's version of the KKK. Official election results are still being reported.