Israel’s Election Chief Says The Result Stands As Netanyahu’s Party Calls It Stolen

JERUSALEM — Israel’s elections chief said on Sunday that last week’s parliamentary election was conducted properly and that an investigation into alleged foreign funding will not change its results — a direct answer to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose Likud party has declared the vote “stolen” since the final count denied his bloc a majority. “Your votes have been counted. Your decision will be respected,” Central Elections Committee chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg told voters.

A Result Nobody Can Govern From

The October 27 election to the 120-seat Knesset ended with Netanyahu’s bloc on 53 seats, the opposition camp led by Gadi Eisenkot on 48, and the Arab lists on a record combined 19 — short of the 61 seats any bloc needs to form a government. Turnout was 77.9 percent, the highest since 1999. The official results are due to be submitted to President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday, after which he will consult the parties on who should be asked to form a government. Neither main bloc can reach a majority without support connected, directly or indirectly, to the Arab parties whose record turnout is now at the centre of the dispute.

The Claim, And The Investigation

On election morning, police arrested three activists from the Arab party Raam over an alleged cash-for-votes scheme. Netanyahu and his allies seized on the arrests: Likud called the affair “an earthquake” and accused Qatar of secretly financing get-out-the-vote drives among Arab voters. Qatar rejected the claim as ridiculous and a disinformation campaign; Raam denied receiving any foreign funding or any connection to the alleged vote-buying, and courts have since released at least one of the suspects. On October 28, Sohlberg asked the Shin Bet security service to investigate “serious suspicions” of improper electoral influence through foreign funding, with findings due within a week. On Sunday he stressed that suspicions alone prove nothing, that polling-station integrity was rigorously safeguarded, and that the probe does not affect the final results. CNN reported that Netanyahu’s side has yet to present public evidence of widespread fraud, and that the original tip about the election-morning arrests came, according to Channel 12, from Netanyahu’s chief of staff to the police commissioner.

‘A Black Cloud’

The judge’s statement did not end the fight. Eisenkot said on Sunday that Netanyahu’s bid to discredit the election had failed. Likud’s answer, carried in the Hebrew press, was that until the investigation ends “a black cloud hangs over the election results in Israel” — and a party has two weeks to challenge an election in court. Netanyahu’s far-right allies have called for the Arab party leaders to be arrested and for the results of their parties not to be recognised. What happens next runs on two clocks: the Shin Bet’s findings, due within days, and Herzog’s consultations from Wednesday, which will decide who gets the first attempt to build a government out of a parliament that has, on the elections chief’s word, spoken clearly.

Sources: CNN, November 2, 2026; Anadolu Agency reporting, November 2, 2026; Central Elections Committee statement, November 1, 2026; Ynet reporting, November 1, 2026.