Israel’s final election results expected Thursday evening: Election official

Israel’s final parliamentary election results are expected Thursday evening, Israeli news website Ynet reported Wednesday, citing an election official, Anadolu reports.

Elad Naveh, director of the Central Elections Committee’s control center, said counting of more than 500,000 special double-envelope ballots would begin Wednesday evening and was expected to be completed Thursday evening, although the process could continue until Friday.

The special ballots were cast by voters outside their registered polling stations, including soldiers, diplomats, police officers and displaced residents.

Under the system, voters place their ballot inside an envelope, which is then placed in a second envelope containing their identification details to prevent duplicate voting.

READ: Arab Joint List extends hand to Eisenkot’s bloc to oust Netanyahu gov’t

As of the latest count, 85.6% of votes had been counted.

Partial results, with 85.6% of votes counted, showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc projected to win 53 seats, the opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot 48 seats and predominantly Arab parties 19 seats.

Neither major bloc was projected to reach the 61 seats needed for a parliamentary majority in the 120-member Knesset.

Naveh cautioned that the distribution of seats could change once the remaining ballots were counted.

More than 7.3 million Israelis were eligible to vote in Tuesday’s elections.

The elections were Israel’s first since the start of its genocidal war on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, according to the supplied account.

READ: Amnesty UK slams Israeli elections as ‘apartheid at the ballot box’