Neither pro-Netanyahu forces nor Gadi Eisenkot's opposition coalition will win a majority in the Knesset in next week's general election, which is poised to deliver gains for both the far-right and Arab parties, according to an average of polls tracked by The New Arab.
Both blocs are currently on course to win 51 seats in the 120-seat Israeli parliament following the 27 October vote, seven polls conducted over the past week show.
This would put them 10 seats short of the majority needed to form a government.
Parties representing Israel's Palestinian citizens , which include the Joint List and Ra'am, are projected to increase their seats in the Knesset from 10 to 14. This would set them up as potential kingmakers to a new government, weeks after right-wing parties tried to ban them from participating in the election.
Included in the Likud's far-right grouping are the extremist Jewish Power and Religious Zionism parties, and Haredi groups Shas and United Torah Judaism.
Eisenkot's Yashar is leading a disparate coalition of forces that includes the hardline Yisrael Beiteinu, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid's Together, and the liberal Democrats party.
Likud has remained neck and neck with Yashar in the polls for most of the past three months, despite rising scrutiny on the internationally wanted prime minister over security failures on 7 October.
Eisenkot's party is currently projected to be the largest in the Knesset with 22 seats. Likud is in a close second with 21.
Far-right gains
Itamar Ben-Gvir's extremist Jewish Power is expected to make large gains in next week's vote, reflecting the mainstreaming of previously fringe Kahanist ideology among the electorate.
In the 2022 election, the party was only able to make it into the Knesset by forming a joint list with Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionism and another small far-right group.
Four years later, it is poised to win eight seats standing on its own, making it the joint fifth-largest party in the assembly.
Anti-Palestinian racism has been at the forefront of Ben-Gvir's election campaign, and he has pledged to ethnically cleanse Gaza and the occupied West Bank and conduct mass executions of Palestinian prisoners.
Already popular among extremist settlers in the West Bank, Jewish Power is trying to make further inroads among increasingly radicalised youth in Israel proper.
Polling shows that the party draws much of its support from younger voters. A third of its supporters at next week's election are expected to be first-time voters.
He has pushed hard for the youth vote with an aggressive social media strategy that has included footage of him participating in the destruction of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem and a viral AI-generated video of Palestinians entering a concentration camp.
Trump intervention fails to boost Netanyahu
Both the Netanyahu and Eisenkot blocs have received potential boosts in the past 48 hours, with the prime minister winning Donald Trump's endorsement and Benny Gantz's centrist party bowing out of the race.
In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump declared his "complete and total endorsement" of Netanyahu, who he called a "great warrior prime minister".
Likud will be hoping that the intervention of the US president – who remains popular inside Israel – will give Netanyahu new momentum in the final days of the campaign.
But according to the most recent poll, the endorsement appears to have failed to tip the balance for Likud.
The survey, conducted for Channel 12 on Monday, put Yashar three seats ahead of Likud on 24 and Eisenkot's bloc on top with 55 seats to the pro-Netanyahu group's 51. The two Palestinian parties had a combined 14 seats.
Meanwhile, Gantz's exit could boost Eisenkot's coalition, with the Blue and White party's moderate voters expected to lean towards an anti-Netanyahu group.
The former defence minister announced on Monday he would be pulling out of the race, with polls showing his party would fail to meet the threshold for entering the Knesset.
