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Center-left candidate Benny Gantz declares victory over Benjamin Netanyahu in the Israeli elections, and is rejecting the prime minister’s call for negotiations over leading the government. Gantz issued a statement Thursday saying, “I am interested in and intend to form a broad and liberal unity government under my leadership.” He also said, “the process of building a government has begun, and we will not be dictated to.” This comes after Netanyahu offered to build a broad coalition government with Gantz amid a tight election. Netanyahu proposed a rotating premiership among the two leaders. “The people chose unity, the people want...

Unless he convinces Israeli lawmakers from outside his party to join him in a national unity government, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 10-and-a-half-year run in office may soon end following inconclusive results inhis country’s parliamentary elections this week that appeared to deprive him of a governing majority in the Knesset. President Donald Trump took a hands-off approach when asked about the elections in America’s foremost ally in the Middle East. “Our relations are with Israel, so we’ll see what happens,” he told reporters while touring California. In Israel, Netanyahu has leveraged his ideological affinity with Trump as a selling point...

According to Channel 13, 97.6% of the votes from Tuesday's elections have already been counted, Blue and White stands at 33 seats and Likud at 31 seats, with Blue and White leading by a narrow margin. It is important to note that these are still not the final results. Overnight, the committee was counting the near quarter of a million soldiers' votes cast by Israeli soldiers. The Central Election Committee (CEC) has been updating its website since the close of the polls at 10 p.m. on Tuesday. The last update was at 10:40 a.m. on Thursday: 4,354,991 votes had been...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party and Benny Gantz's Kahol Lavan are tied but neither can secure a ruling majority, with 92 percent of the votes in Israel's Tuesday election counted, according to a source in Israel's Central Elections Committee. (Who is Benny Gantz? Read the full profile) >> The election is here. Subscribe now - save 30% According to the partial results, Likud and Kahol Lavan won each 32 out of 120 Knesset seats. Netanyahu's bloc, comprised of right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties, currently stands at 56 seats. The center-left bloc, excluding Arab parties, has 43 seats. Avigdor Lieberman, whose...

Right-wing factions convened at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem Wednesday afternoon, deciding to establish a "right-wing bloc" headed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, that will work for the establishment of the next government. It was decided to form a joint coalition negotiations team for all factions in the bloc. In addition to Netanyahu, the meeting saw the participation of Minister Yariv Levin and faction heads: Yaakov Litzman, Moshe Gafni, Naftali Bennett, Ayelet Shaked, and Bezalel Smotrich. Minister Aryeh Deri met with Prime Minister Netanyahu earlier this morning, as he was unable to attend the meeting due to the memorial ceremony...

Israelis cast their votes on Tuesday in a hotly-contested election, pitting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud against Benny Gantz's Kahol Lavan. With exit polls expected shortly, parties across the political spectrum called on their supporters to vote, some out of fear that they will fail to cross the electoral threshold, others merely seeking to instill a sense of emergency among supporters. Turnout has been historically lower in the Arab sector, and according to pollsters, Tuesday's election will see particularly low numbers. Netanyahu's Likud party provided activists with 1,200 hidden cameras "to monitor" Arab polling stations – a move that prompted...