Final Israeli tally leaves Netanyahu at 53 seats, and the word “stolen” arrives without a named speaker

Israelis voted on 27 October for the 120 seats of the 26th Knesset, and the Central Elections Committee completed the count of double-envelope ballots on Thursday 29 October. The Times of Israel reports the final distribution as Netanyahu’s bloc 53, Yair Eisenkot’s bloc 48 and Arab-led parties 19, with Likud on 27 seats, Yashar on 21, B’Yachad 12, the Joint List 11, The Democrats 8 and Ra’am 8. Likud remains the largest single party and is nowhere near a majority. CNN frames the scale of the contraction: 53 seats against the 68-seat coalition Netanyahu led in the outgoing Knesset, where Wikipedia’s election page records Likud’s own outgoing strength at 32. France 24, citing Haaretz on the committee’s announcement, confirmed the same outcome — largest party, short of a majority.

The turnout figures do not agree with each other and should not be mixed. The Times of Israel gives 77.9 percent and 5,716,665 votes cast; Arutz Sheva counts 5,564,764 valid votes; the Jerusalem Post reports 77.7 percent at poll close, up 7.1 points on 2022, which is the cleanest single statistic in the file. Haaretz reported on election day that Netanyahu “repeatedly warned his supporters on Tuesday of what he claimed was” high Arab turnout, under the headline “'Emergency': Netanyahu Rails Nonstop Against Alleged High Arab Election Turnout.” The turnout he warned of materialised: Haaretz’s 28 October live blog ran under “Over 70% of Votes Counted: Arab Parties at Historic High,” and the Arab-led bloc finished on 19. CNBC, on 30 October, headlined that Netanyahu’s party claims the election was “stolen” — a characterisation of the party, with no named official, forum or specific allegation retrievable.

Assessment: Treat the “stolen” line as unfinished reporting, not as an event. Until a named Likud figure says it in Hebrew with a specific allegation attached, it is a wire characterisation — and the place to watch is whether it fastens onto the double-envelope ballots, because those are precisely what was counted on Thursday and the only part of the process with a plausible procedural hook. The arithmetic, meanwhile, is less decisive than it looks. CNBC notes Herzog may give Netanyahu the first call; Ynet puts consultations on 4 November. The number nobody has counted is how many of the 19 Arab-bloc seats recommend Eisenkot, and whether Ra’am’s Mansour Abbas recommends anyone at all.