Live updates: Netanyahu falls short again in Israeli election

Good evening,

Areeb here from MEE's London office. With most of the votes counted after Tuesday's election, Israel is set for another political deadlock. Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud and Benny Gantz's Blue and White Party emerged with 32 seats each - falling well short of a 61-seat majority. A unity government bringing together the two rivals could be the only path forward to end the impasse.

Here's a round-up of key points to watch over the coming weeks:

1) Once all the votes are counted, all eyes will turn to President Reuven Rivlin, who is likely to meet with Netanyahu and Gantz following consultations with the smaller parties.

2) The Joint List, which represents Palestinian citizens of Israel, is set to win 12 seats in the Israeli Knesset and could become Israel's official opposition.

3) Avigdor Lieberman, whose Yisrael Beiteinu party is poised to win nine seats, called for a secular unity government between Gantz and Netanyahu. He has already ruled out sitting in a coalition with the Joint List.

4) Netanyahu ruled out the prospect of joining forces with Gantz to form a national unity government. While Gantz hinted that he was open to the idea, he said he will wait for the final results to make a decision.

5) The outcome of political crisis may spell the end of Netanyahu's political career, as he faces multiple investigations into several corruption cases.

For now, we will be stopping further updates on the blog. Till then, tune in for our latest coverage on future developments on Israeli politics via Facebook and Twitter.

Likud Knesset member Miki Zohar said his party was damaged by its failed attempt to pass a law allowing parties to film voters in polling stations.

“Without a doubt, the cameras campaign came back at us like a boomerang,” Zohar said.

The most expected outcome of Tuesday elections in Israel has somehow become the biggest surprise.

The tie between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White on about 33 seats each is a reflection of longtime division of Israeli society into two camps.

Yet even before Israelis know who their next PM is going to be, even before we know if the Netanyahu era is over, all political analysts agree the days of Netanyahu as we know him - “the magician”, the omnipotent leader of ”another league” - are certainly over.

Read MEE's latest analysis from Lily Galili in Tel Aviv, Israel

Aymen Odeh, the leader of the Palestinian Joint List, has said his party may become the official opposition.

With Blue and White and Likud likely to form a unity government, the Join List would be the largest remaining party. It is on course to win 12 to 13 seats.

Odeh said he's open to the idea of becoming the official leader of the opposition, including “attending security briefings”.

The Joint List leader said “it is possible that we will recommend Blue and White head Benny Gantz [to form a government] to President Reuven. However, we have clear conditoins and based on them we will decide. We want to replace Netanyahu.”

As leader of the opposition, Odeh would meet weekly with the prime minister and attend high-level security briefings. He could conceivably be informed of operations in Gaza, the West Bank and elsewhere.

With 92 percent of the votes counted, Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party and Benny Gantz's Blue and White party are tied, according to a source in Israel's Central Elections Committee, Israel's Haaretz newspaper has reported.

According to the partial results, both parties each won 32 out of 120 Knesset seats. 

Netanyahu's bloc, made up of right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties, stands at 56 seats. The centre-left bloc, excluding the Joint List, which represents Palestinian citizens of Israel, has 43 seats.

Avigdor Lieberman, whose Yisrael Beiteinu party is projected nine seats, is expected to be the election's kingmaker. 

He repeated his support on Wednesday for a "broad liberal unity government," which would include Yisrael Beiteinu, Likud and the Blue and White party.  

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu neither claimed victory nor conceded defeat in a brief speech to supporters early on Wednesday.

Instead, he called for a "strong Zionist government" that would exclude Palestinian Israeli parties.

"There won't and cannot be a government supported by anti-Zionist Arab parties who deny the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, who glorify bloodthirsty terrorists who murder our soldiers," Netanyahu said, as reported by Haaretz. 

The comment appears to be a message to Netanyahu's rivals in the Blue and White alliance, which needs the support of the Palestinian Joint List party, to form a ruling coalition.

The Joint List may have won as many as 15 seats, according to exit polls.

Both Netanyahu's Likud and the Blue and White party, led by Benny Gantz, have won between 30 and 34 seats each, falling short of an outright majority in the 120-seat parliament.

The leader of Blue and White party Benny Gantz said he was negotiating to form a coalition government, but stopped short of declaring victory after Tuesday's elections.

"We succeeded in our mission and stuck to our path," Gantz said

Exit polls showed Gantz in a virtual tie with Benjamin Netanyahu, but analysts say he is better-positioned to form a coalition government, especially if results give his alliance a slight edge over the prime minister's right wing bloc. 

Despite being to the left of Netanyahu on domestic issues, Gantz, a centre-right former army chief, has also pledged to keep Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

In a platform released in March, his party pledged to "strengthen the settlement blocs and enable normal life anywhere Israelis live".

Early exit polls showed Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party neck-to-neck with Benny Gantz's Blue and White, with two polls giving the former army chief the edge over the prime minister.

By 6am about a quarter of the votes had been counted.

Revised surveys by Israeli TV stations, several hours after polls closed, gave Likud 30 to 33 of parliament's 120 seats, a slight drop from earlier forecasts, versus 32 to 34 for Blue and White.

Neither had enough support, at first glance, for a governing coalition of 61 legislators, and Netanyahu's ally-turned-rival, former Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, emerged as a likely kingmaker as head of the far-right Yisrael Beitenu party.

Gantz, said it appeared from the exit polls that Israel's longest-serving leader was defeated but that only official results would tell, the Reuters news agency reported.

In his own speech to Likud party faithful, Netanyahu, sipping water frequently and speaking in a hoarse voice, made no claim of victory or concession of defeat, saying he was awaiting a vote tally.

Israel's former defence chief Avigdor Lieberman, whose Yisrael Beiteinu party is expected to win eight seats, giving him a critical role in the formation of a ruling coalition has called for a unity government that would include both Netanyahu's Likud and Gantz's Blue and White. 

"We have only one option - a national, liberal, broad government comprising Yisrael Beitenu, Likud and Blue and White," Lieberman told a campaign rally in Jerusalem.

One slate celebrating tonight will be the Joint List.

The alliance of Palestinian parties looks set to emerge as the third-largest party in the Knesset, with 11 to 13 seats.

In the lead-up to the election, Netanyahu and his party employed rhetoric widely denounced as racist.

On Monday, Palestinians in the Galilee told MEE that has only encouraged them to vote, and the size of their bloc looks an important obstacle in Netanyahu's way.

We've some hours to go before the final results are in, but this looks like a bad night for Benjamin Netanyahu.

Once again Avigdor Lieberman is kingmaker, and there's nothing to suggest he'll sit with Netanyahu and the Ultra-Orthodox parties this time around.

There is some suggestion that parts of Gantz's Blue and White may break off to sit with Likud's coalition. But that may be on the condidtion that Netanyahu, who faces a hearing in his corruption cases in a fortnight's time, steps aside.

More immediately, Netanyahu's threat that he will annex the occupied West Bank's Jordan Valley if re-elected looks a more distant possibility - at least for now.

The polls have closed and Netanyahu's Likud looks short of a majority by four to seven seats!

Blue and White are no closer to forming a majority either. Election in 2020 anyone?

Fatah's Central Committee, Hussein al-Sheikh, denied claims that the Palestinian Authority interfered in the Israeli elections. 

Sheikh was forced to respond to claims of interference after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed the PA interfered in the elections hours before polls close. 

In previous elections, the PA has encouraged Palestinians living inside Israel to vote in the country's elections. 

Amid calls for a boycott of the election and fear-mongering about Palestinians threatening the Israeli right-wing by showing up en masse to the polls, one person appeared particularly optimistic today: Joint List candidate Sami Abu Shehada.

Speaking to MEE in Yaffa this afternoon, Abu Shehada, who ranks 13th on the Joint List candidate list, said he had noticed increased participation in several polling stations he visited today in Palestinian-majority areas.

“This is a much more positive election than the one last April. People are far more encouraged. There is better participation,” he said, adding that Benjamin Netanyahu’s racist incitement against Palestinian citizens of Israel had “pushed people to vote more”.

For Abu Shehada, the close race between Netanyahu’s Likud and Benny Gant’s Blue and White party means every vote matters, and that smaller groups like the Joint List, which represents Palestinian citizens of Israel, can play a tie-breaking role.

“The Joint List will have a far bigger political importance than just a few seats because of this existing split in Israeli society between two equal camps,” he said. “Every vote counts in parliament.”

While Abu Shehada said he expected the election to end in a coalition government between Likud and Blue and White, “I believe the Joint List will be the surprise of this election”.

Voter turnout reached 53% at 6 PM Israeli time, with three hours left till polls close, according to Israel's Central Election Committee. 

The committee noted that 3,418,531 voters came out to vote on Tuesday's election, making turnout higher than April's vote.