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Israel election ends in deadlock as Netanyahu alleges fraud

Israel's parliamentary election ended with no bloc winning the 61 seats needed for a majority, as Netanyahu's coalition alleges fraud and the opposition accuses him of delegitimizing the result.^{⁠[3, 5, 41 +1]} Final results showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud and its religious and nationalist allies won 53 seats, while Gadi Eisenkot's opposition bloc won 48, according to Bloomberg and The New York Times.^{⁠[5, 11, 26]} The Arab parties strongly denied the fraud allegations, the New York Post reported.^⁠[29]

Opposition leader Yair Golan said Netanyahu was trying to rerun an election he lost through an ugly delegitimization campaign against Arab voters, per UPI and The Guardian.^{⁠[3, 21]} Axios reported Netanyahu appears to be trying to spook the opposition out of cooperating with Arab parties to form a government.^⁠[10] If the opposition joins with the Arab-led parties, it would form the next government, though the Los Angeles Times called that a rare and politically risky move; final results were expected Thursday evening.^⁠[45]

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Read first After losing his majority, Netanyahu tries to delegitimize election results · Axios