Israel's final count leaves the right-wing camp on 53 seats as Arab lists take 19

Israel's election commission announced the final results of Tuesday's parliamentary election overnight from Thursday to Friday. The outgoing coalition of right-wing and far-right parties around Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ends up with 53 of the Knesset's 120 seats, RTBF reports, with his Likud remaining the largest party on 27 seats. The opposition bloc led by centrist Gadi Eisenkot takes 48 seats. A majority requires 61. HLN and Het Nieuwsblad paint the same picture: Netanyahu's camp is the largest, but falls well short.

The most striking winners are the two Arab lists, Raam and the United List, which together take 19 seats on a turnout of 77 percent, the highest since 1999. That gives them weight in any possible majority. Netanyahu's camp accuses those parties of buying votes with money from Qatar, La Libre and Business AM write; Business AM calls the accusations unfounded. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir even called for the leaders of the Arab parties to be arrested, La Libre reports. Qatar and the parties deny everything, and Eisenkot accuses Netanyahu of trying to delegitimise the result.

The Shin Bet domestic security service is investigating suspected irregularities, but stresses that it does not aim to target an entire community that voted lawfully. The election commission says some of the information circulating is entirely baseless and that the investigation has no bearing on the result, according to RTBF. The results will be formally handed to President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday, who will then consult party leaders and task someone with forming a government.

That process promises to take weeks, and if it fails, a fresh election cannot be ruled out. In an opinion piece in Knack, Alexander Loengarov writes that cooperation between Arab and Jewish parties stands little chance in the short term, despite the deadlock.