Netanyahu and Eisenkot Camps Trade Barbs as Israeli Exit Polls Show Dead Heat

Israel's political leaders offered sharply different readings of exit poll projections on Wednesday that showed no clear winner between the country's two main blocs in the national election.

Updated figures broadcast by Israel's Channel 13 put Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud-led coalition level with the opposition bloc headed by challenger Gadi Eisenkot, with each side on 51 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. Arab parties not aligned with either camp were projected to win 18 seats. That leaves both major blocs 10 seats short of the 61 needed for an absolute majority.

Even with the narrower numbers, opposition figures declared the outcome a rebuke of the government. Eisenkot, who leads the Yashar party and is a former military chief of staff, told supporters after polls closed that the early projections reflected a "complete lack of confidence in Netanyahu and the October 7 government," according to the AFP news agency.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid went further in a statement. "Don't let anyone confuse you: the Netanyahu bloc has suffered a crushing defeat," he said. "This is a total collapse and the public has told them to go home."

At Eisenkot's watch party in Tel Aviv, supporters cheered the projections. The Central Elections Committee reported voter turnout of 77.7 percent.

Senior figures in Netanyahu's camp rejected those claims and said the final tallies could change the balance. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, a key ally of the prime minister, called the opposition statements "premature." He wrote on social media that Likud remained the largest single party in parliament.

Leaders of Arab parties, meanwhile, pointed to the role they may play in coming coalition talks. Mansour Abbas, head of the United Arab List (Ra'am), told reporters: "We will transform the mandate we received into a new reality in the country."

At the headquarters of the Joint List alliance in Nazareth, candidate Faten Gattas said strong participation among Palestinian citizens of Israel was meant to prevent the return of Netanyahu's nationalist coalition. "We refuse the occupation and racism, and we will remain here," she said, according to the Reuters news agency.

With neither camp close to a governing majority, political analysts said smaller parties are likely to be the key deciders as formal coalition negotiations begin in the coming days.