What to know as Israel holds first vote since 7 October

Israelis go to the polls today in an election that will decide whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu survives the worst security failure in the country's history.

Polls opened at 7am local time (5am Irish time), and around 7.3 million people are eligible to vote.

It is the first election since the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, the deadliest day in their country's history.

On that day, more than 1,200 people were killed in southern Israel, while 251 were taken hostage.

It is also the first election in Israel since the war that followed in Gaza, where more than 74,000 people have been killed by the Israeli military - and much of the enclave has been reduced to rubble.

That has also brought accusations of genocide, from a UN commission of inquiry and in a case at the International Court of Justice, which Israel rejects outright.

But it is only the first of those three issues that has dominated the campaign here in Israel.

For most voters, the primary question on the ballot is about who should answer for the security failures that allowed 7 October to happen - not about the subsequent conflict in Gaza.

In that sense, the election is being seen as a referendum on one man.

Who is running?

Mr Netanyahu, 77, has been prime minister for nearly two decades across three spells in office.

Israelis know his pitch well. Mr Netanyahu, who has long cast himself as Israel’s protector, argues that only he can lead the country through its various wars.

In the final days of the campaign, he has leaned heavily on US President Donald Trump, who issued a second endorsement on Sunday, urging Israelis to vote for him so that the two men could "finish the job" in Iran after the election.

His main challenger is Gadi Eisenkot, 66, a former head of the Israeli military whose son was killed fighting in Gaza in December 2023.

Mr Eisenkot’s new centrist party, Yashar, edged ahead of Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party in most of the final polls.

He has run a strikingly low-key campaign. For many of those backing him, his central appeal is simply that he is not Mr Netanyahu. Where the prime minister is polished and combative, Mr Eisenkot is plain-spoken and reserved.

Neither man is offering a Palestinian state. Nearly every Jewish-led party in Israel, Mr Eisenkot’s included, now opposes one.

Both leaders also support Israel’s settlements in the Occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law. But Mr Eisenkot has promised to clamp down on violent settlers, including by reintroducing so-called administrative detention for them.

What is the election about?

Above all, this election is about accountability.

For the past three years, Mr Netanyahu has resisted fervent calls for a state commission of inquiry into 7 October - the kind of investigation that Israel has turned to over other such security failures.

Mr Eisenkot has promised one, along with an equal draft for all sectors of society, including ultra-Orthodox men, many of whom do not serve in the army.

The Iran factor

In the final days, the campaign has been overtaken by Iran and claims that Mr Netanyahu has been playing politics with it.

On Sunday, Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Mr Netanyahu had clashed with the head of the army, Eyal Zamir, over an unspecified military directive linked to Iran - and that Mr Zamir had rebuffed him, insisting instead on a signed legal authorisation before carrying it out.

CNN then reported that Mr Netanyahu had pressed for a joint strike on Iran with the US before the election, and that Mr Trump had not given the green light.

Mr Netanyahu’s office dismissed the reports as "fake news", while Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel had no intention of attacking Iran before the vote.

But the opposition quickly seized on the reports. Avigdor Liberman, a former defence minister, called the alleged move "treason" and asked the attorney general to investigate.

Read more: Why Israel's election is a referendum on Benjamin Netanyahu

"Do not dare place your political interests above the state’s security," Mr Eisenkot warned the prime minister.

A majority against Netanyahu - on paper

The final polls, published before a legal blackout came into force on Friday, pointed to deadlock between the two main blocs.

Mr Netanyahu’s bloc and the opposition parties lined up behind Mr Eisenkot were each projected to win around 52 or 53 seats – well short of the 61 needed for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset.

But that arithmetic leaves out the Arab parties.

Arab citizens make up around a fifth of Israel’s population, and the two main Arab parties, the Joint List and Ra’am, are polling at around 14 seats between them.

Add them to the opposition, and the polls suggest that there is, on paper at least, a comfortable majority against the prime minister.

Both parties have indicated that they are willing to help bring him down. Ra’am’s leader, Mansour Abbas, said he wants to be an "influential partner".

The Joint List’s leader, Yousef Jabareen, has offered his party as a "safety net".

"I think for Arab citizens, it’s an existential election," Mauricio Lapchik, a campaign director for the Joint List, told RTÉ News.

He expects turnout among Arab voters, which was just over half at the last election, to reach at least 70% this time.

"If Arab parties manage to reach 15, 16, even 17 seats... the opposition will need in some way or another to reach out to us," he said.

The obstacle, however, is Mr Eisenkot himself.

He has thus far ruled out bringing Arab parties into government unless they meet a series of conditions, including recognising Hamas as a terrorist organisation.

He has not, however, ruled out relying on their support from outside it, perhaps in a minority government situation.

"We might disagree ideologically, we might disagree strategically," Mr Lapchik said of the opposition, "but we all understand that the return of Netanyahu-Ben-Gvir-Smotrich is an existential danger for everyone here."

What happens next?

Polls will close at 10pm local time (8pm Irish time), when the main television channels publish their exit polls, which are usually reliable.

However, the final result may not be known until Thursday, since around 600,000 ballots cast by soldiers and others are counted separately.

Once the result is finalised, President Isaac Herzog will then consult the parties before asking one leader to try to form a government. That leader will have 28 days to do so, with a possible 14-day extension.

Meanwhile, Mr Netanyahu in that period will stay on as a caretaker, or interim, prime minister. And if no one can form a government, Israelis could be heading to the polls for another election as soon as January.

Mr Netanyahu has been written off before. The last time his opponents managed to oust him from office, in 2021, it took four elections in a two-year period to do so.

He was back in the prime minister’s office within 18 months.