As Israel goes to the polls, Benjamin Netanyahu is facing a right-wing opposition shaped in part by his own politics. Polls suggest his Likud bloc has weakened, but he remains the dominant figure on the Israeli right.
01Summary
- 01Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking re-election on 27 October while the International Criminal Court wants him on war crimes charges over Gaza.
- 02He first became Israel’s youngest prime minister in 1996 and returned for a sixth term the year after his 2022 comeback.
- 03The text says his current coalition includes Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, two of Israel’s most controversial right-wing figures.
- 04Opinion polls put Likud and its allies roughly tied with a broad anti-Netanyahu bloc, but Likud is projected to fall from 32 seats in 2022 to about 20 to 22 seats.
- 05The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recorded 1,291 settler attacks in the West Bank in 2023 and 1,835 in 2025.
02Why it matters
The result will shape Israel’s direction on Gaza, the West Bank and relations with Palestinians. It also shows how much of the country’s politics has been reorganised around support for, or opposition to, Netanyahu himself.
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