The Isr*el election is over, and nobody won. On 27 October, Isr*elis voted for the 120-seat Knesset. Two days later, with the count complete, neither side had the 61 seats needed to govern. Pundits are now arguing over coalitions, horse-trading and who sits where. Meanwhile, in Gaza, drones kept flying. Gaza still bleeds, and here’s the uncomfortable truth: whoever forms the next government, Gaza was never on the ballot.
Isr*el Election 2026 Results: A Hung Knesset
With over 99% of ballots counted, the provisional numbers look like this:
- Netanyahu’s bloc: 53 seats
- Opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot: 48 seats
- Arab-led parties: 19 seats, their strongest showing in years
- Needed to govern: 61 seats. Nobody has them.
Results are due to be certified next week, and then the real bargaining starts. Eisenkot has already met Naftali Bennett to talk about forming a government “as quickly as possible.”
Arab Voters Showed Up, So They Were Called Thieves
Arab-led parties, backed by Palestinian citizens of Isr*el, won 19 seats. The response from Likud? Claims, with no evidence, that Arab-led parties “stole” the election, possibly with foreign help. The head of the Central Elections Committee said he couldn’t verify the claims and passed them to the Shin Bet.
Think about that. Isr*el sells itself to the world as “the only democracy in the Middle East.” Yet when Arab citizens vote, the ruling party calls it theft.
And the “opposition” isn’t much better. Eisenkot has pledged not to partner with Arab-led parties. Only Yair Golan’s Democrats are open to it. So the same Arab votes the opposition needs to reach 61 are the votes it refuses to touch.
Gaza Still Bleeds: Aid Monitors Killed on Results Day
On Thursday, 29 October, the same day the vote count wrapped up, an Isr*eli drone struck al-Mawasi in Rafah, near the Karem Abu Salem crossing. It killed four civilian employees of Gaza’s Ministry of Economy. Their job? Monitoring the aid trucks coming into Gaza. More than 30 others were wounded.
That wasn’t the only attack that day:
- In Maghazi camp, a drone fired two missiles at a civilian car, killing two people.
- In eastern Gaza City, artillery hit a house, wounding 11 people, including women and children.
- Gaza’s Health Ministry reported 6 killed and 38 wounded in just 24 hours.
More than 1,500 Palestinians have now been killed since the October 2025 “ceasefire.” Read that sentence again.
21,468 Patients Waiting for a Door to Open
Gaza’s Health Ministry says 21,468 patients and wounded people need treatment outside the Strip. Of these, 6,430 are priority cases. Since February, only 3,056 have been evacuated. The ministry says dozens have died while waiting for permission to leave.
The ministry is begging for the Rafah crossing to open fully. Not one campaign speech in the Isr*el election was about that.
Why the Isr*el Election Changes Nothing for Palestinians
Western media will frame this as “Netanyahu vs. the moderates.” Don’t fall for it.
- Eisenkot is a former army chief and sat in the war cabinet that ran the Gaza war.
- Bennett, his likely partner, is a former prime minister with a long record of opposing a Palestinian state.
- Netanyahu has run the war on Gaza from day one.
The fight is over who gets to run Isr*el, not over whether Gaza gets to live. Swap the faces at the top and the drones, the closed crossings and the demolitions stay the same.
The Rant
The world will spend the next month analysing coalition maths. Who will Bennett join? Will Netanyahu survive again? Meanwhile, 21,468 sick and wounded people wait at a border, and aid monitors get killed for counting trucks.
Elections are supposed to give people a voice. Two million people in Gaza live under Isr*el’s control and got no vote at all. That’s not democracy. And until that changes, Gaza still bleeds.
Also read: Gaza Winter Crisis: Aid Cut for 500,000 While Isr*el Squeezes Food Supplies
Sources: Al Jazeera (election results, 29 Oct; Gaza strikes and Rafah, 29 Oct), Times of Isr*el.