Live updates: Israeli polls neck and neck
Live Updates
As we've seen, Netanyahu isn't adverse to promoting an Israeli brand of 'project fear', known in Israel as 'gevalt', the Yiddish word for alarm.
In an attempt to jolt his electorate into voting, Netanyahu has released another video calling on Likudniks to get to the polls.
"We are in an emergency," Netanyahu says. "At 4pm the left vote was at 61 percent and Likud was only at 42 percent. If you don't vote we will lose the election."
Gantz, meanwhile, isn't adverse to trying those tactics himself. The retired general, too, has been releasing videos encouraging supporters to vote.
"The data looks good but is not enough. We must give much more effort. Likud are delivering lies and collecting people," he says.
On Tel Aviv beach, Ochry Air is chilling out with her husband and daughter.
"I've always voted for parties with social policies, but unfortunately they are always small," she tells MEE.
"This time I'm voting Gesher, because I know a peace agreement is coming no time soon and I want someone who will care about our welfare."
Air and her husband say they're struggling in today's economic climate.
"Prices of kindergartens are sky high and the dream of owning our own flat seems impossible. Trivial things in this country look like a faraway dream.
Though Air's husband is reluctant to be interviewed, he does reveal who he will vote for: Moshe Feiglin's Zehut, a Jewish supremicist party that advocates a holy war in the West Bank and legal cannabis.
Valeria, 47, and Yossi, 50, are leaving the polling station in West Jerusalem’s Kiryat Yovel neighbourhood.
Who did they vote for? “Bibi. He’s the best,” Yossi says.
The couple aren't worried about Netanyahu’s corruption allegations in the slightest.
“It’s just fake news and bullshit,” Valeria says.
“It’s wonderful what he’s done abroad, with other countries. Especially building relations with Arab countries.”
Benjamin Netanyahu has been caught on video on a beach north of Tel Aviv warning beachgoers that there would be a left-wing government if they didn't get off the sand and go and vote.
"If they stay at the beach and don't vote, they’ll wake up tomorrow with Yair Lapid as the head of a left-wing government," he is heard saying.
"If you want to continue with Likud, and with me, then you need to go vote. Go to the beach after!"
Camil Fuchs, a pollster for Haaretz and Channel 13, said that there had been a very low turnout among Israel's Palestinian citizens in Tuesday's election.
"We have never seen such things, and this may be the biggest drama," she told Haaretz.
Hadash-Taal politcians Ahmad Tibi also warned that the low turnout could risk Palestinian parties being kept out of the Knesset.
“The low turnout in Arab towns is a real threat to both [Arab-majority] lists,” Tibi said on Twitter.
He warned it could mean “a serious blow to Arab representation in the Knesset.”
Benjamin Netanyahu is relying on a coalition of right-wing voters to keep him in power on 9 April's elections.
However, while many right-wingers will vote for him in order to keep "leftists" out of government, he is often seen by this safe constituency as being himself too much of a "centrist" and not willing to go far enough in push the Right's agenda in Israel.
On Saturday, Daniel Hilton and Lubna Masarwa spoke to the right-wing youths in Jerusalem who could end up shaping the future of Israeli society.
"We should punish the Arabs so they behave themselves. Killing Arabs is a religious duty."
It looks like the widespread calls for Palestinian citizens of Israel to boycott the election might be working.
According to local news site Arab 48, the Palestinian parties estimate that the percentage of voting in predominently Arab areas didn't pass 15 percent until 2pm today. At 12pm it was only 8 percent, a third compared to the rest of the country.
Awad Abdelfattah, political analyst and former Balad party official, told MEE that the Nation State Law "has finally put an end to the illusion that something can be changed through the Knesset".
"My current conviction is our representation in the Knesset is mere cover to a brutal aparthied colonialist regime. It’s time to rip off of the the mask and expose Israel as it is in reality," he said.
Benjamin Netanyahu has fired his first online salvo of polling day.
In a video posted on Twitter, the prime minister alleges that he has a recording of representatives from Gantz's Blue and White and the Labor party hatching a plan to include Palestinian parties in a future "left-wing government".
"Only Likud can stop this deal," the premier says. "Don’t stay home, don’t stay on the beaches. Vote to stop a left-wing government."
The video then plays the alleged recording.
In 2015, an online address by Netanyahu saying Arabs were voting in their "droves" helped swing the election decisively in his favour.
Slightly confused about what's going on today and too embarrassed to ask? Maybe you'll find what you're looking for here.
- Israel is voting in a nationwide election to elect members of its 120-seat parliament, which is called the Knesset
- Around 6.3 million people are registered to vote in Israel
- Some 40 parties are running, but only 14 slates have a realistic chance of passing the 3.25 percent threshold needed to enter the Knesset
- 10,000 polling stations are open across the country
- Most polling stations opened at 7am Jerusalem time. Voting ends at 10pm
- An exit poll will be released at 10pm, with results trickling in from then. Full official results are not expected until Wednesday
- Following the election, President Reuven Rivlin will consult with the parties and nominate the candidate deemed best placed to form a governing coalition
You can't be expected to read everything on Israel's elections, but Middle East Eye's recent pieces are a good place to start.
Here's a list of reccomended reading from Israel:
Many in Israel and beyond will be eager to see Netanyahu toppled today.
But Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence has released a video reminding that whatever the outcome of the election, Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories will continue to erode its society and democracy.
"When we deprive Palestinians of democracy, we also deprive it from ourselves," the video says.
Israel rules over 5.3 million Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Though they have some autonomy, in practice Palestinians there are shut out of the Israeli systems of governance that have ruled them for more than 50 years.
Controversy has struck already.
Secret cameras have been located in several polling stations in areas with large Palestinian communities across the country. Netanyahu's Likud party has provided activists with 1,200 body cameras to monitor the elections, Haaretz reported.
However, filming without consent in polling stations is illegal. Police have begun removing cameras from several locations.
Videos are circulating online showing cameras being discovered.
The Hadash-Taal slate has filed a complaint to the elections committee, asking for the cameras' immediate removal.
"The radical right fully understands the power we have to overthrow those in power, and [they] cross every red line through illegal measures in an attempt to intervene [in the election] and prevent the Arab citizens from voting," Hadash-Taal said in a statement.
"But we also understand the power we have, and today we are going out to vote and nothing will stop us."
It's early in the day, but Palestinian citizens of Israel are not turning out in the same numbers as other communities in the country, according to local media.
Arab 48, a website affiliated with the Balad Party, reports that parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel are struggling to get their voters out.
A call to boycott this year's elections has followed the failure of the Joint Arab List, which fell apart a few months ago, and the Israeli parliament's passing of the Nation State Law, legally enshrining Jewish supremicy in Israel.
According to Arab 48, turnout is a bit lower overall this year so far. At 10am, 12.9 percent of Israelis had voted, compared to 14.3 percent at the same stage last year.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former army commander Benny Gantz have already dropped their ballots into the box.
"This is a sacred act, the essence of democracy, and we should be thankful for that," Netanyahu said as he voted in a Jerusalem school.
"You need to choose well, but I can't tell you for whom. Or I can, but I'm not going to. God willing, Israel will win."
Gantz, meanwhile cast his vote in the central Israeli city of Rosh Haayin.
"I am looking the people of Israel in the eyes and telling them: this change is possible. I offer myself as Israel's prime minister and together, we will take this new path."
Hello and welcome to Middle East Eye's Israeli elections live blog!
Israelis have one major question on their lips today: Can Benny Gantz oust Benjamin Netanyahu from the premiership after a decade in power.
What do the polls say? Maybe.
Netanyahu's Likud and Gantz's Blue and White were neck and neck heading into Tuesday. Though the prime minister has an easier path to power, many things could swing the election one way or another.
Voting ends at 10pm Jerusalem time, with an exit poll expected on the dot.
We'll be here all day blogging from inside Israel, with updates from our correspondents around the country.
