Israel just held an election and Netanyahu could lose his majority

Israel is voting right now.

It's the 26th Knesset election, polls opened at 7am local time, and voting is still going on.

So here's the number that matters. 7,331,981 people can vote today. That's 543,177 more than last time.

And Arab citizens make up about 18% of them. That's 1.172 million voters.

Well, pollsters say they're turning out in force. The Midgam Research Institute says Arab turnout could hit 62 to 63%. Last election it was about 53%.

Yousef Makladeh runs the Stat-Net research institute. He says turnout could reach around 68% if the momentum holds.

The National is reporting it could go as high as 70%.

Now, these are projections. Not final counts. Voting is still happening, and the numbers move depending on who you ask.

So why are Arab voters showing up like this? Marzouq Halabi is a writer and researcher. He told The New Arab this is defensive voting. Against Benjamin Netanyahu's government. Against the war in Gaza, the home demolitions, the displacement.

Maha Karkabi is a Joint List candidate. She says high turnout could stop far-right parties crossing the electoral threshold. It could even deny Netanyahu a coalition entirely.

But here's the twist. She's already ruled out the Joint List joining any Israeli government, whoever wins.

Now the maths. And it's tight.

Most polls put Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc at 49 to 55 seats. That's Likud, Bezalel Smotrich's far-right party, Itamar Ben-Gvir's far-right party, and two ultra-Orthodox parties. You need 61 seats out of 120 to govern. So he's short.

But nobody agrees on how short. The National's final poll before the blackout gave the opposition 56 seats, Likud 50, and Arab parties 14. Other pollsters — Maariv, Channel 13, Channel 12 — have the two sides almost level, somewhere between 48 and 56 each.

There is no single agreed number right now.

Gadi Eisenkot is Netanyahu's main challenger. He used to be Israel's military chief of staff. Now he leads the centrist Yashar party.

And the voters on each side aren't even fighting about the same thing.

Inside Netanyahu's own coalition, the top issue is the war with Iran. 21% say that's what matters most to them.