A Likud party campaign ad featuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump, with a Hebrew message reading, "We have one opportunity to win," appears on a bus in Jerusalem Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israelis flocked to the polls on Oct. 27 for the first time since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack, with a deeply divided electorate delivering their verdict on veteran Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the country’s rightward drift.
Turnout reached 31.5 percent by noon, up from 28.4 percent at the same point in the 2022 election, according to the Central Elections Committee.
The figure marked the highest noon turnout since 1973, when Israelis voted for the first time after the Yom Kippur War.
Voting began at 7 a.m. and will close at 10 p.m., with the election results expected to become clear by the early hours of the following morning.
Voter turnout among Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) personnel reached 30 percent by 10 a.m., up from 25.7 percent at the same time during Israel’s previous election in 2022, according to the military.
Voting for soldiers began a week before election day, with 850 polling stations set up at military bases in Israel and abroad.
The close-fought vote came as Israel looks increasingly isolated on the world stage, driven by its devastating military campaign in Gaza, soaring settlement construction and violence in the occupied West Bank, and a move towards hard-right religious nationalism.
The last opinion polls to be published showed Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, running neck and neck with his main rival Gadi Eisenkot, a centrist political novice and former military chief whose mild manner is seen as the antithesis of the incumbent.
“I want change in our country,” Alexandra, 65, told AFP at a Jerusalem polling station, where a few dozen people waited to vote in the morning.
“What bothers me most is the division amongst the people.”
Some 7.3 million people are eligible to vote, with hundreds of thousands of young people due to cast their ballot for the first time. Surveys show they overwhelmingly identify as center-right or right-wing.
Tens of thousands of Israelis are estimated to have flown in from abroad to vote in an election seen as crucial to deciding the future character of their country.
Eilana Zisblit, 55, told AFP she had travelled back from Canada where she has lived for almost 30 years in order “to make a change”, voting for a centre-right party in Eisenkot’s bloc.
