Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and rival Gadi Eisenkot offered competing claims to lead Israel after Tuesday’s election, with Netanyahu calling for a right-wing government and Eisenkot saying voters had rejected the longtime Israeli leader, even as exit ​polls left their blocs deadlocked.

Netanyahu called for the formation of “a strong, right-wing national government,” while Eisenkot said the public had voted against Netanyahu remaining prime minister and called on him to ‌retire from politics. Neither of them claimed victory, Reuters reported.

Neither declaration resolved the electoral arithmetic.

With actual votes trickling in, Kan 11 and Channel 13 exit polls had the blocs tied at 51-51, while Channel 12 gave Netanyahu’s Likud-led bloc a narrow 52-49 edge. None left either side with the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset.

The deadlock could work in Netanyahu’s favour, leaving him in office as a caretaker prime minister during what are likely to be prolonged coalition negotiations or even until another election can be ​held.

Far-right religious parties led by Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich were projected to take a combined 13 seats within Netanyahu’s bloc – with no major gains for either of them.

Arab parties outside the two main ​blocs could hold the balance of power. But Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party and a former military chief, has all but ruled out forming a government with ⁠them, complicating his path to power.

SECURITY FIGHT SHARPENS

Netanyahu highlighted Israel’s military successes and raised the prospect of renewed joint action with US President Donald Trump against Iran as he addressed party faithful after 3 a.m. (0100 GMT) at ​Likud election headquarters in Jerusalem.

“Israel faces a singular historical opportunity, together with our partner President Trump, to remove the existential threat of Iran once and for all. But ulterior motives must not divert us from this sacred mission,” ​he said.

Eisenkot earlier warned Netanyahu not to use Israel’s security for political purposes.

“Netanyahu is a caretaker prime minister, without a mandate or the people’s trust,” Eisenkot said, calling on the security establishment to “stand firm” against any attempt to put political interests ahead of Israel’s security.

Voter turnout was 77.7%, Israel’s Central Elections Committee said, the highest in more than two decades and around 7 percentage points higher than in 2022.

Final results are expected on Thursday or Friday, and Israel’s fragmented political system leaves smaller parties potential kingmakers ​in coalition negotiations that have run to weeks or months after past elections. If neither bloc can form a government, another vote may need to be held, something Eisenkot opposed given the high voter turnout.

Yohanan Plesner, president ​of the Israel Democracy Institute, called the exit polls a major defeat for Netanyahu’s coalition but cautioned that Eisenkot had not emerged as a clear winner and much could change as votes were counted.

NETANYAHU SETBACK, NO CLEAR WINNER

If the exit ‌poll projections hold, ⁠Netanyahu’s nationalist-religious coalition, which at its height held 68 seats, would fall far short of the 61 needed to govern, leaving him with no clear path to forming a government.

Eisenkot, 66, who lost a son and two nephews in the Gaza war, emerged as Netanyahu’s strongest challenger, stressing his security credentials while positioning himself as a centrist domestically.

He entered politics only four years ago and joined Netanyahu’s war cabinet after the 2023 Hamas attack, but quit eight months later, criticising the prime minister’s leadership.

Eisenkot offers a break with Netanyahu’s leadership and far-right allies, but not with the hawkish approach to security that has become more entrenched since the 2023 Hamas attack. He opposes Palestinian statehood ​and says Hamas’ military wing must be destroyed or ​dismantled.

Eisenkot says Israel’s response — a war that has ⁠killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities — was a failure because Hamas remains in charge.

The headquarters of the Joint List, an alliance of several Arab parties, burst into whistles and applause when exit polls were released, on a historic night for turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel.

“We refuse the occupation and racism, and we ​will remain here,” said Faten Gattas, a candidate in the Joint List, in a speech at the alliance’s headquarters in Nazareth. Candidates hoped high Arab turnout would ​allow them to play a ⁠decisive role in blocking Netanyahu’s coalition from returning to power.

A WARTIME VERDICT

Voters grappled with the trauma of Israel’s deadliest day, when Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage, and the wars in Gaza and with Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran that followed.

While Netanyahu was criticised for the country’s biggest security failure, he argued that he had made Israel and the world safer by killing top leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.

The policies of Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition have been divisive at ⁠home and deepened ​Israel’s international isolation, but he has portrayed himself as the leader with the mettle to face down Israel’s foes.

Netanyahu, 77, has served ​as prime minister for nearly 19 of the past 30 years and has repeatedly survived political crises. His opponents have managed to wrest the premiership from him only once since 2009, after four inconclusive elections in two years. Eighteen months later, he was back.

He entered the election ​facing long-standing corruption charges, which he denies, and criticism over intelligence failures that allowed Hamas-led militants to carry out their attack.

Yemen’s Houthis have kept up their attacks on Saudi Arabia as senior officials from the kingdom, Turkey and Pakistan are due to hold high-stakes talks with Iran in Tehran on Monday, following warnings of a return to war, AFP reported.

Fresh explosions rattled Riyadh overnight, along with a text message warning to residents, after the Iran-allied Houthis claimed a new attack on the Saudi capital’s international airport on Sunday.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, has become deeply embroiled in the eight-month war since hostilities in its long-running conflict with the Iran-allied Houthis resumed in July.

Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman is among the delegations travelling to Tehran, made up of officials from the three countries that signed a defence alliance in Mecca in August.

Their visit follows warnings by the United States, Iran and Israel that hostilities could resume.

Tensions have increased ahead of Israel’s pivotal election on Tuesday and next week’s US mid-terms, where US President Donald Trump’s Republicans are battling to keep control of both chambers of the US Congress.

Iran’s security chief Mohsen Rezaei will take part in Monday’s meeting with Prince Khalid, Pakistani army chief General Asim Munir and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin, the deputy secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Bagheri Kani, told state TV.

“This historic meeting in Tehran may be the last chance before escalation spirals out of control, an attempt to impose a path of de-escalation before it’s too late,” Hesham Alghannam, a Saudi security analyst and researcher, posted on X.

“The presence of military and security figures at this level together means that the remaining time is extremely limited.”

‘Serious tensions’

On Sunday, as blasts rang out over Riyadh and authorities sent texts warning residents of a “hostile aerial threat”, the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis said it struck missile launchers and storage facilities in Yemen.

The Houthis said they had attacked Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport once again. The repeatedly targeted facility has been largely closed since 13 people were killed and more than 300 wounded in a major attack this month.

Mediation efforts between the US and Iran have been led by Qatar and Pakistan. A Qatari delegation visited Tehran on Sunday, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said.

“Our region is in the grip of serious tensions, and neighbouring countries are striving to convey a message and put forward initiatives,” Baqaei said on Monday.

Andreas Krieg of London-based risk consultancy MENA analytica said Prince Khalid’s presence in Tehran was “hugely significant”, calling him the “strategic mastermind of Saudi Arabia”.

Prince Khalid, brother of Saudi de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has emerged as one of Saudi Arabia’s key diplomatic interlocutors, dispatched on sensitive regional missions.

“For him to go to Iran directly in this very sensitive time is a very, very strong signal that the kingdom is not just… sitting and waiting for things, events to unfold,” Krieg told AFP.

“There’s a clear effort by the Mecca alliance to signal to Iran that they’re ready to work together to defend the kingdom and defend the kingdom’s borders,” he added.

“And so should Iran think to escalate, which they will likely do if Israel and the US strikes, and they will most likely strike Saudi Arabia, Iran will have to bear the consequences.”

‘Don’t test us’

Comments by senior officials have raised speculation about renewed hostilities.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday “there has been talk of a new war” but that Tehran’s policies remain unchanged.

Trump said on Friday that Washington “may do another little Epic Fury”, referring to the US-Israeli campaign against Iran that began on February 28.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Iran may try to disrupt the Israeli elections, where he is in a close-fought race to stay in power.

“We have intelligence signs that our enemies, Iran and its proxies, could challenge us with attacks in order to disrupt the elections,” Netanyahu said.

“Don’t test us. You will suffer disproportionate blows,” added Netanyahu, who has campaigned heavily on his security credentials.

The remarks came as Israel’s Channel 12, citing unnamed sources, reported a confrontation between Netanyahu and army chief Eyal Zamir over an unspecified new directive in the war with Iran, which the premier denied.

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Monday they had ‌attacked Saudi Arabia’s East-West crude oil pumping stations and Riyadh airport, as rising hostilities choke oil supplies and threaten to erupt into a larger conflict, Reuters reported.

The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said earlier it had destroyed two ballistic missile launchers in the capital Sanaa, including one used to fire a ​missile towards Riyadh that the coalition said it had intercepted.

There was no immediate Saudi confirmation of the Houthi attacks.

The ​Houthis have been firing ballistic missiles and drones at Saudi airports, ports and oil installations, turning ⁠US ally Saudi Arabia into a pressure point in the wider war.

The Houthis also said they had struck Riyadh’s King ​Khalid International Airport, which resumed operations at two terminals on Sunday after an attack claimed by the group earlier this month killed 13 people, ​the deadliest in the kingdom in more than a decade.

Top officials from the Mecca Pact countries Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan are set to meet Iranian officials in Tehran on Monday to discuss regional coordination, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

The planned talks would be the ​first high-level contact between Iran and all members of the three-nation bloc since Saudi Arabia came under escalating attacks from ​Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis, read the report.

Saudi Arabia temporarily shut down its 1,200-km (746-mile) East-West pipeline in September as a precaution after a drone attack that Riyadh and ‌Baghdad ⁠said originated in Iraq. The pipeline has served as a key route for Middle East oil exports while the Strait of Hormuz has been largely shut by the war.

The Houthis also said on Saturday they had targeted the East-West pipeline, crude oil pumping stations, an Aramco facility in Yanbu and the Rabigh refinery. There was no Saudi confirmation of those claims.

The Saudi coalition said on ​Monday it had also carried ​out a military operation against ⁠Houthi targets in Yemen, destroying five tunnels used to store ballistic missiles, four ballistic missile launchers and a missile storage facility.

The operation also targeted Houthi supply lines, fighters and military equipment ​along front lines inside Yemen, coalition spokesperson Turki al-Maliki said, pledging continued “deterrent operational measures” to protect ​civilians.

Saudi Arabia has ⁠intensified its strikes on the Houthis since the group captured strategic areas along Yemen’s Red Sea coast last month, advancing towards the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a key global shipping route for Gulf oil producers on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula from the ⁠Strait of ​Hormuz, Reuters reported.

The latest fighting has effectively ended a UN-brokered truce that had largely held ​since 2022. Saudi Arabia led a coalition into Yemen’s civil war in 2015 to back the internationally recognised government, a year after the Houthis seized the ​capital Sanaa.