Israeli Election Results Trigger Coalition Standoff as West Bank Sieges and Gaza Strikes Persist
Arab-led parties won a record 19 seats, complicating government formation while military operations displace thousands in Hebron and kill nearly 1,600 in Gaza since the ceasefire.
By Chioma Kuznetsov ·
The recent Israeli election produced a fragmented result that has left the formation of a new government uncertain, even as military operations continue in the occupied territories. Arab-led parties secured a record 19 seats, a shift that has intensified political debate in Jerusalem.
Nearly 840,000 voters cast ballots for Ra’am and the Joint List, representing a 64 percent increase over the 2022 election. Including these parties in opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot’s bloc would yield 67 seats, sufficient to form a government without Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Without their support, a unity deal between Zionist blocs or a repeat election appears necessary.
Netanyahu’s Likud party claimed the vote was stolen, citing unproven allegations of Qatari financing, though Qatar denied these claims. Police sources told The Times of Israel that no evidence of widespread fraud existed, and election committee chairman Noam Sohlberg declared the process conducted properly by Sunday. Despite these findings, coalition negotiations reflect the tension. Avigdor Lieberman of Yisrael Beytenu has excluded Palestinian partners, while Eisenkot proposed conditions including recognizing Israel as a Jewish, democratic, liberal, and egalitarian state and mandatory national service for all citizens.
In Hebron, a ten-day military siege ended on November 2 when Governor Khaled Dudin announced the army’s withdrawal. Al Jazeera’s data unit counted 10 sealed entrances and approximately 5,000 displaced residents during the operation. The army arrested at least 120 people, demolished 13 businesses, and destroyed the homes of two men accused of an attack. Dudin estimated daily economic losses at 10 million to 12 million shekels, roughly $3.2 million to $3.8 million, in a city that produces about 40 percent of Palestinian industrial output.
Other closures affected the Masafer Yatta hills, where at least 12 villages were cut off, and forces detained 10 teachers from the Jinba school. In Wadi Rakhim, Yousef Shanaran reported that settlers poisoned the well outside his home, leaving his family without water or food for four weeks. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs documented 397 settler attacks causing casualties or damage in the first 26 days of October, the highest monthly count since 2006.
In Gaza, the Ministry of Health recorded 1,593 deaths since the previous year’s ceasefire, with at least eight killed on Sunday alone. A drone strike on a Ministry of Economy facility in al-Mawasi killed five people, including Wajdi Abu Bakr, who died on Sunday. Other strikes killed police officers, children, and civilians, with six-year-old Tahani Shalalfeh and eight-year-old Yamen Saqr among those reported killed. Israeli authorities claimed many victims were Hamas fighters but provided no evidence for these assertions.
Humanitarian conditions remain strained as winter approaches. Two infant girls died of burns in a tent fire in al-Mawasi, and the Social Development Ministry stated that 200,000 tents are needed while only dozens have entered due to restrictions. The Red Crescent warned on Monday that the health system risks collapse after 26 hospitals ceased operations due to fuel shortages.
