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Likud's party lead leaves Netanyahu short in opening exit polls

The broadcast separates the largest party from a governing majority, with Arab parties projected to hold a substantial share of seats.

Channel: Al Araby Arabic channel ·

Arab worldStory of October 28, 2026Trari Newsroom

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العربي - أخبار : The Arabic television channel Al Araby, broadcasting from London since 2015, owned by a company backed by Qatar. 12M subscribers and 9.6B views.

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0:06Channel 12's exit poll puts Likud first among individual parties, with 24 seats.
1:04The bloc breakdown gives Netanyahu 50 seats, Eisenkot 52 and Arab parties 18.
1:35Channel 13's projections show a similar balance, with the opposition slightly ahead.
3:00The closing analysis distinguishes Likud's party lead from either bloc's ability to assemble a governing majority.

Likud leads the individual parties, but that is not enough to give Benjamin Netanyahu a governing majority. That distinction drives the opening exit-poll coverage from Qatar-based Al Araby Television as Israeli polling stations close.

The broadcast begins with live feeds from Jerusalem, Haifa and Nazareth. A reporter in Haifa reads Israeli Channel 12's projection, putting Netanyahu's Likud first with 24 seats. The more consequential calculation follows: Netanyahu's camp has 50 seats, the bloc led by challenger Gadi Eisenkot has 52, and Arab parties have 18.

With 61 seats needed for a majority in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, neither main bloc can form a majority government on those projections without additional support. The Arab-party total is presented separately, not as seats already committed to Eisenkot. The parties discussed include the Joint List and Mansour Abbas's United Arab List, also known as Ra'am.

Eisenkot, a former Israeli military chief of staff, is challenging Netanyahu as leader of the Yashar party. But the studio's immediate conclusion is about parliamentary arithmetic rather than a declared successor: the result remains unresolved.

The broadcast then introduces Channel 13's exit poll, describing a similar balance with the opposition slightly ahead. By the closing exchange, analyst Ahmad emphasizes that Netanyahu's camp has retreated but nobody yet has the numbers to form a government. These are exit-poll projections, not a completed vote count or an agreed coalition.