Key facts
- Herzog received the official election results from the Central Elections Committee on Wednesday morning.
- Netanyahu's bloc won 53 seats and Eisenkot's bloc won 48 in the 120-seat Knesset.
- The United Arab List and the Joint List won an unprecedented 19 seats together.
- Sohlberg said no evidence of irregularities was found and claims of a stolen election did not justify delaying certification.
- Herzog said he would begin consultations on Wednesday evening and warned that not every promise could be fulfilled.
- The Shin Bet is investigating alleged foreign interference, which Sohlberg said would not fundamentally change the outcome.
Israel's President Isaac Herzog began consultations with political parties on November 4, 2026, on whom to task with forming a new coalition government, after receiving the official results of an election last week that he said had no clear winner.
Herzog told party leaders that "not every commitment and promise can be fulfilled" if they want to avoid a new election. Neither the bloc of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his rival Gadi Eisenkot secured a majority in the 120-seat Knesset.
In the October 27 election, Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party and its far-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish allies won 53 seats. Eisenkot's centrist Yashar party and three other Jewish opposition parties in his bloc won 48. Two Arab-led alliances, the United Arab List and the Joint List, together won an unprecedented 19 seats following a surge in turnout among Arab voters, making them potential kingmakers. All but one of the Jewish parties pledged before the polls not to work with them.
Central Elections Committee chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg presented the official results to Herzog at a ceremony in Jerusalem on Wednesday morning. Sohlberg said electoral officials found no evidence of irregularities and that unsubstantiated claims by Netanyahu's camp of Arab-led parties "stealing" the election did not justify delaying certification. "In recent days, we have heard voices trying to cast doubt on the election results and to undermine their legitimacy. This is a real danger," Sohlberg said.
The Shin Bet security service is investigating allegations of foreign interference in the election. Sohlberg said its intelligence appeared to point to a "widespread phenomenon involving the influx of substantial funds into Israel from foreign states", some hostile, and that further investigation was needed to determine the scale. Israeli media reported last week that the committee had been presented with a claim that Qatar provided funding aimed at increasing voter turnout in Arab communities; Qatar's foreign ministry categorically denied the allegation.
Herzog expressed confidence in the Shin Bet's investigation and appealed for patience, but warned that Arab Israelis, about one fifth of the population, "must not be smeared". He said he condemned "the coarseness and racist expressions that we have heard recently".
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the Jewish Power party, called on the Shin Bet to arrest all leaders of Arab parties and interrogate them. Joint List chairman Yousef Jabareen accused Ben-Gvir and the prime minister of attempting to "steal the election from the public". On Tuesday, Eisenkot alleged that Netanyahu and Likud were "trying to carry out a veritable pogrom against democracy and the rule of law", after Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara rejected a reported demand by Shin Bet chief David Zini to interrogate four Arab politicians, saying no evidence of wrongdoing had been presented. Likud accused Baharav-Miara of trying to "obstruct the investigation and to cover up this serious case of manipulation of the electoral process by foreign actors".
The president's role is largely ceremonial, but after an election the president invites a Knesset member to form a government. That person gets 28 days, with a potential 14-day extension, and the president has wide discretion to pick someone believed to have the best chance of building a coalition, not necessarily the leader of the largest party.