Live: Polls open in first Israeli election since October 7 attack

Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has voted at a polling station in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba. “God willing I will become defence minister, it will be good for the soldiers and good for the people of Israel,” Ben-Gvir told reporters. Ben-Gvir's Jewish Power party gained support in opinion polls ahead of Tuesday's vote.

He is perhaps the most visible of Netanyahu’s allies, with his public taunting of Palestinian detainees. Itamar Ben-Gvir casts his ballot, accompanied by his wife Ayala, at a polling station in Kiryat Arba settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. (Photo: Ilia Yefimovich, AFP)

Reporting from Jerusalem, FRANCE 24’s Noga Tarnopolsky explains that “the name of the game” after Election Day is whether the country’s fractious opposition, including an Arab-Israeli majority bloc, can come together to form a government.

Israelis vote not for individuals but for parties, which then form alliances to create a majority coalition. No single party has ever won a majority in parliament, known as the Knesset. After polls close late Tuesday, the jostling for power is likely to begin — between parties small and big — to achieve a governing coalition and name the next prime minister.

Although it could be weeks or even months before a new prime minister is named, here are some key points we know as Israelis go to the polls. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalitions have long relied on ultra-Orthodox parties that demand exemptions from military conscription for young men engaged in religious studies.

Netanyahu rival GadiEisenkot — who lost his son and two nephews to combat in Gaza — has vowed to end the de facto exemptions. Over three dozen parties are competing in the election, and roughly one dozen are expected to win enough seats to enter parliament. Netanyahu, 77, leads the nationalistic Likud, Israel’s largest party. His legacy is on the line.

Eisenkot, 66, spent four decades rising through the ranks of Israel’s military. He now leads the largest opposition party — the centrist Yashar — after entering politics in 2022. Other leading candidates include Naftali Bennett, a 54-year-old former prime minister and onetime aide to Netanyahu who has formed a joint ticket with his centrist partner, Yair Lapid.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, 50, is Israel’s national security minister and leader of a far-right ultranationalist party in the current coalition. Yair Golan, 64, is a former general who leads the Democrats, a center-left party that favors the establishment of a Palestinian state. Israelis are largely opposed to a Palestinian state.

Hello and welcome to our live coverage as Israel votes in a pivotal election, the first since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

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