In today’s newsletter: Benjamin Netanyahu has been left without a majority, now it is up to the coalition to find out whether the desire for change will prove to be a defining political moment
Good morning. It was described by many Israelis as the most consequential election in their country’s history. And, as the final votes were tallied, it has delivered a result that presents Israel with a significant dilemma.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition has lost its mandate while the opposition has a clear majority: but only if the Jewish Israeli opposition bloc, led by retired general Gadi Eisenkot, is prepared to make a governing pact with Palestinian Israeli parties, which have secured a historic result.
UK politics | John Healey has backed away from cutting the cost of welfare this parliament, amid dire warnings his first budget could lead to brutal spending cuts because of a £28bn shortfall in public finances.
Patrick Stewart | The acclaimed British stage and screen actor renowned for both Shakespeare and sci-fi, died at his home in Los Angeles after “a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia”, his longtime spokesperson said.
Environment | One of the most ambitious nature recovery projects ever undertaken in England can go ahead after campaigners announced they had raised £30m to buy an estate in Northumberland.
Europe | Spain began three days of mourning on Thursday for at least 69 people who died in a high-speed rail collision, as hospitals continued to treat dozens of injured passengers and train drivers went on strike to urge more investment in railway safety.
US news | The Trump administration has opened a criminal investigation in California over claims that thousands of noncitizens are registered to vote in the state, and has begun subpoenaing election officials.
Elections are never enough by themselves, but the stunning results from Serbia, Brazil and Hungary have given us hope in dark times
It is undoubtedly too early to declare victory, but the recent electoral defeats of Viktor Orbán, Aleksandar Vučić and Flávio Bolsonaro make me wonder: is 2026 turning out to be the year democracy slowly, but surely, fought back?
Even in Israel, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reigning bloc lost its parliamentary majority and saw the spectacular rise of Arab parties. Though the opposition may not be able to form a government yet, it does have the larger parliamentary bloc.
David Van Reybrouck is a Belgian author and philosopher laureate for the Low Countries. He is the author of Against Elections: The Case for Democracy, and the initiator of Democracy27
Un enorme y ya descolorido póster electoral del ministro de Finanzas, Bezalel Smotrich, recibe al visitante tras atravesar el portón de seguridad de la colonia israelí de Efrat, en Cisjordania. El gesto sonriente y confiado del líder ultraderechista choca con el semblante preocupado de los habitantes de este asentamiento cuando salen a relucir los resultados de las elecciones legislativas del martes.
Benjamín Netanyahu se ha lanzado a deslegitimar el proceso electoral israelí, es decir, la democracia que él mismo lidera, con una acusación de injerencia que no solo refleja su ya conocida tendencia a cuestionar las instituciones cuando estas no le benefician, sino su desprecio hacia el 20% de la población israelí que es de origen árabe y que en esta ocasión ha votado en masa. Lo hace después de perder la mayoría parlamentaria en las elecciones celebradas el martes y ante un escenario en el que los partidos árabes israelíes, con un resultado histórico, se han convertido en el potencial árbitro político del país.
Resultados finais em Israel confirmam a vitória do bloco de Netanyahu, com 53 deputados, mas sem maioria absoluta. Ainda nesta edição, PSP já planeia acompanhamento das acampadas previstas para sábado
El bloque Benjamín Netanyahu alcanzó 53 escaños frente a los 48 de la oposición y los 19 de las fuerzas árabes. Sin que ningún sector logre la mayoría absoluta de 61 escaños en la Knéset, se abren complejas negociaciones para destrabar la gobernabilidad en Israel.
AF! O primeiro-ministro de Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, saiu vencedor das eleições legislativas, mas o seu bloco de direita e ultraortodoxo não conseguiu alcançar a maioria necessária para governar sozinho. Segundo os resultados finais divulgados pela Comissão Central de Eleições, a coligação liderada pelo Likud obteve 53 das 120 cadeiras do Knesset, oito abaixo dos 61 […]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party complained on Wednesday that this week's tumultuous election was “stolen by Arab parties that support terrorism and the elimination of the Jewish state.”
Results released by election officials on Thursday showed Netanyahu's bloc winning 53 seats in the 120-member assembly, well below the 68 seats it had controlled at its peak in the previous parliament.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party and its allies won 53 seats in Parliament, falling short of the outright majority needed to form a government. The main opposition bloc, led by Gadi Eisenkot, won 48.
O Comitê Central de Eleições de Israel divulgou nesta quinta-feira (29) o resultado final da votação para o Parlamento do país. Ele ainda será certificado em 4 de novembro e está sujeito a “pequenas alterações”, segundo as autoridades.
O partido Likud, de Benjamin Netanyahu, continua sendo a maior legenda no Parlamento, tendo conquistado 27 cadeiras. O Yashar, de Gadi Eisenkot, principal rival do primeiro-ministro, ficará com 21.
O bloco do premiê conquistou um total de 53 cadeiras, mas ficou aquém de assegurar a maioria, que seria de 61 cadeiras — o Knesset tem, ao todo, 120 lugares.
Por sua vez, a oposição também falhou na tentativa de conquistar maioria: o bloco assegurou 48 assentos.
Os partidos árabes, agrupados na Lista Conjunta e no Ra’am, conseguiram um resultado expressivo, com 19 cadeiras. Assim, podem ser importantes para as alianças de formação de novo governo.
Veja como ficará a distribuição do Parlamento de Israel:
Likud: 27 cadeiras
Yashar!: 21 cadeiras
B’Yachad: 12 cadeiras
Lista Conjunta: 11 cadeiras
Os Democratas: 8 cadeiras
Ra’am: 8 cadeiras
Yisrael Beiteinu: 7 cadeiras
Otzma Yehudit: 7 cadeiras
Yahadut HaTorah: 7 cadeiras
Shas: 6 cadeiras
Religious Zionism: 6 cadeiras
Ao todo, 5.716.665 votos foram contabilizados. Destes, 5.690.778 foram considerados válidos, enquanto 25.887 votos foram invalidados.
O comparecimento de eleitores às urnas foi o mais alto em décadas, com 77,9%.
Veja o número de votos por partido
Likud, partido de Netanyahu, lidera com 1.167.458 votos válidos (20,52%)
Yashar, partido de Gadi Eisenkot, com 913.502 votos (16,05%)
Juntos, partido liderado pelo ex-primeiro-ministro Naftali Bennett, com 531.414 votos (9,34%)
Lista Conjunta, aliança de partidos árabes, com 500.147 votos (8,79%)
Os Democratas, partido liderado por Yair Golan, com 366.352 votos (6,44%)
Yisrael Beytenu, de Avigdor Lieberman, com 337.413 votos (5,93%)
Ra’am (Lista Árabe Unida), com 337.253 votos (5,93%)
Otzma Yehudit, partido de Itamar Ben-Gvir, com 326.624 votos (5,74%)
Judaísmo Unido da Torá, com 312.604 votos (5,49%)
Shas, partido religioso sefardita, com 299.506 votos (5,26%)
Sionismo Religioso, de Bezalel Smotrich, e Zehut, de Moshe Feiglin, com 290.451 votos (5,10%)
O que acontece agora?
Depois que os resultados forem certificados, o processo eleitoral passa para o presidente de Israel, Isaac Herzog.
Em uma série de reuniões em Jerusalém, Herzog iniciará uma rodada de consultas durante a qual cada partido eleito recomendará seu candidato ao cargo de primeiro-ministro.
Com base nessas recomendações, o presidente encarregará um dos candidatos com a tarefa de tentar formar um governo.
Depois de receber a incumbência, o candidato iniciará semanas de negociações políticas sobre cargos ministeriais, prioridades orçamentárias e compromissos de governo.
Essa pessoa designada pelo presidente terá um prazo de 28 dias — provavelmente prorrogável por mais 14 dias — para formar um governo.
Se não conseguir, o presidente israelense passará a incumbência a outro candidato, que terá mais quatro semanas.
Se essa segunda tentativa também fracassar, o Parlamento terá um curto prazo para apresentar outro candidato. Caso isso não aconteça, o país irá automaticamente a novas eleições.
A coalizão do primeiro-ministro de Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, não conseguiu obter maioria no Knesset, o Parlamento de Israel, nas eleições gerais do país.
O bloco formado por partidos de direita e ultraortodoxos obteve 53 cadeiras, abaixo das 61 necessárias para formar a maioria.
Os resultados finais foram divulgados pela Comissão Central de Eleições de Israel, após a conclusão da contagem dos votos e a revisão dos dados.
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Já Likud, partido do primeiro-ministro, liderou a disputa, conquistando 27 das 120 cadeiras do Knesset.
O partido foi o mais votado, seguido pelo Yashar, do ex-chefe militar e principal rival de Netanyahu, Gadi Eisenkot, que garantiu 21 assentos. O Juntos, do ex-premiê, Naftali Bennett, por sua vez, conquistou 12 cadeiras, enquanto a Lista Conjunta, da aliança de partidos árabes, ficou com 11.
Os Democratas e o Ra’am terão oito representantes cada. Já o Yisrael Beytenu, o Otzma Yehudit e o Judaísmo Unido da Torá conquistaram sete cadeiras cada. O Shas e o Sionismo Religioso ficaram com seis assentos cada.
Ao todo, 11 listas de candidatos conseguiram superar a cláusula de barreira (de 3,25% dos votos) e terão representantes no Parlamento israelense. As demais candidaturas não atingiram o percentual mínimo exigido para conquistar cadeiras.
Segundo a Comissão Central de Eleições, o comparecimento às urnas foi de 77,9%. Foram contabilizados 5.716.665 votos, dos quais 5.690.778 foram considerados válidos e 25.887, inválidos.
Veja o número de votos por partido
Likud, partido de Netanyahu, lidera com 1.167.458 votos válidos (20,52%)
Yashar, partido de Gadi Eisenkot, com 913.502 votos (16,05%)
Juntos, partido liderado pelo ex-primeiro-ministro Naftali Bennett, com 531.414 votos (9,34%)
Lista Conjunta, aliança de partidos árabes, com 500.147 votos (8,79%)
Os Democratas, partido liderado por Yair Golan, com 366.352 votos (6,44%)
Yisrael Beytenu, de Avigdor Lieberman, com 337.413 votos (5,93%)
Ra’am (Lista Árabe Unida), com 337.253 votos (5,93%)
Otzma Yehudit, partido de Itamar Ben-Gvir, com 326.624 votos (5,74%)
Judaísmo Unido da Torá, com 312.604 votos (5,49%)
Shas, partido religioso sefardita, com 299.506 votos (5,26%)
Sionismo Religioso, de Bezalel Smotrich, e Zehut, de Moshe Feiglin, com 290.451 votos (5,10%)
O que acontece agora?
As autoridades israelenses têm até o dia 4 de novembro para certificar os resultados. Enquanto isso, o presidente israelense, Isaac Herzog, realizará uma rodada de consultas com todos os principais líderes partidários.
Na sequência, ele convidará os líderes que, em sua avaliação, possuem as maiores chances de formar um governo. Esse processo pode levar semanas.
O primeiro líder designado tem 28 dias para formar um governo, com a possibilidade de uma prorrogação de 14 dias caso não consiga fazê-lo.
Se o primeiro candidato não obtiver sucesso, o presidente pode transferir a incumbência para um segundo candidato, que terá 28 dias para formar um governo.
Caso a segunda tentativa também fracasse, a maioria dos membros do Knesset pode solicitar ao presidente que encarregue um terceiro candidato, que terá, então, 14 dias para montar uma coalizão.
Se tudo isso falhar, haverá uma nova eleição.
(Com informações de Kara Fox e Tal Shalev, da CNN)
Israel is facing political uncertainty after an election that produced no clear governing majority. But what do the results reveal about how Israelis want leaders to confront the country's challenges? Nick Schifrin discussed that with Tamir Hayman, former chief of Israeli military intelligence and current executive director of the Institute for National Security Studies.
In the past, many Palestinians and Arabs followed Israeli elections closely. They did so not because they entertained illusions that a Zionist leader would deliver peace and justice, dismantle the occupation or remove illegal settlements. Rather, they feared that some Israeli leaders were worse than others. They hoped to avert the worst-case scenario.
Over time, however, that distinction gave way to the belief that all Israeli leaders were essentially the same. This is not pessimism. It is experience.
Consider, for example, the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements during the Oslo peace process under Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Between 1992 and 1995, the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, increased from 111,673 to 140,235 – a rise of more than 25 per cent, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), drawing on Israeli statistical records.
The same pattern continued under the Labour government of Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Within his first six months, Barak’s government issued tenders for 3,196 settlement housing units, exceeding the annual average under his right-wing predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu.
When Naftali Bennett formed a coalition government in June 2021 that included the Arab party Ra’am, settlement expansion continued unabated.
According to the Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now, the Bennett–Lapid government advanced plans for 7,292 settlement housing units during its first year, a 26 per cent increase over the annual average recorded under previous Netanyahu governments.
The settlements are themselves a driving force behind the occupation. They require land, and therefore land confiscation; protection, and therefore an expanded military presence; water, roads and infrastructure, and therefore the appropriation of Palestinian resources. Together, these elements deepen dispossession and generate further Israeli violence.
According to the PCBS, the West Bank contained 645 Israeli settlement sites, outposts and other occupation installations by the end of 2025, including 350 settlement outposts.
The Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, a Palestinian Authority body, reported that Israeli authorities targeted approximately 29,335 dunums of Palestinian land through declarations of so-called “state land” between October 2023 and August 2026 – one of the largest waves of such land appropriation since Oslo.
By September 2026, the Commission had also documented the advancement or consideration of plans for more than 18,000 additional settlement housing units across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
By the end of 2023, the West Bank had experienced its deadliest year for Palestinians since the UN began systematically recording casualties in 2005.
The Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission documented 23,827 attacks by Israeli forces and settlers against Palestinians and their property during 2025 alone. In the first seven months of 2026, settler attacks increased by 63 per cent compared with the corresponding period of the previous year.
Typically, this violence, carried out by the Israeli occupation army and armed illegal settlers, is contextualised within the ongoing genocide in Gaza. But violence in the West Bank also serves another purpose beyond collective punishment: the confiscation of Palestinian orchards, the annexation of land, the expansion of settlements and the crushing of Palestinian resistance, including non-violent opposition to this colonial enterprise.
Any Israeli candidate in the 27 October elections who supports settlement expansion does so with full knowledge of its consequences: further dispossession, military occupation, annexation and violence.
The difference between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and politicians presented as less extreme, is often one of language, strategy and timing.
Former Israeli military chief and Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot, for example, openly supports the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, despite his reputation as a more “moderate” alternative to Netanyahu.
What, then, about Gaza?
Who among Israel’s leading political figures is promising to end the genocide, lift the siege, ensure unrestricted humanitarian aid, restrain the army or investigate violations of international law? None.
Israeli media have spent the past three years reporting on major disagreements between the government, military establishment, intelligence agencies and political opposition over what should happen in Gaza.
Yet Eisenkot has pledged to end Hamas’s rule in Gaza within 18 months of taking office, whether through US President Donald Trump’s framework or through continued war.
For his part, Yesh Atid leader and former Prime Minister Yair Lapid has proposed placing Gaza under Egyptian administration for up to 15 years, effectively shifting responsibility for Israel’s actions onto Arab states.
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, meanwhile, supports continued Israeli military control until Palestinian groups are disarmed.
The disagreement, therefore, is often over how Israel should achieve its objectives, rather than whether those objectives should change.
Other major disagreements primarily concern Israeli society: the conscription of ultra-Orthodox Jews, judicial reform and accountability for the failures of 7 October.
But these disputes should not be confused with the questions that matter most to Palestinians.
If Netanyahu succeeds in forming another right-wing coalition, the policies of occupation, settlement expansion and military confrontation will continue, potentially with renewed momentum.
If Israel produces a broader coalition, its members may reach compromises over judicial reform, conscription and other domestic disputes. The occupation, however, is unlikely to become the central point of disagreement.
More troubling still, even a government leaning towards the centre-left might succeed in presenting Israel to the international community as a country ready to move beyond the image it acquired during three years of genocide, without fundamentally changing its conduct on the ground.
The international community must therefore remain vigilant. It cannot allow a future Israeli government to present itself as a peacemaker, or sell the illusion of a newly reformed Israel, while continuing to invest in settlements, occupation, war and genocide.
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