Government leaders
Netanyahu bloc leads as Israeli votes counted, but no majority
The camp of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was ahead of his rival’s opposition bloc but still short of a majority on Wednesday after two-thirds of the votes were counted in Israel’s pivotal general election. Voters turned out in the highest numbers in decades to give their verdict on Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, who has pushed the country sharply to the right and unleashed a wave of wars in response to Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack. Following the vote, both Netanyahu and his main rival Gadi Eisenkot vowed to form a government despite neither being projected to win a