Israel: with 71% of votes counted, Netanyahu looks set for election victory

 With 71 percent of the votes counted after yesterday's General Election in Israel, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu looks set to win. There have been some noticeable changes in the distribution of seats among Jewish parties and a decline in votes for the coalition parties headed by current Prime Minister Yair Lapid, according to data published by the Central Elections Committee today.

The committee announced this morning that as of 8.19am local time, 3,451,440 votes have been counted from 75 percent of all ballot boxes. Likud has apparently won 23.72 percent of the valid votes counted so far, with Lapid's Yesh Atid party winning 17.95 percent. The Religious Zionism coalition headed by right-wing extremists Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir has won 10.47 percent.

Benny Gantz's National Camp, meanwhile, has won 9.1 percent, while the ultra-Orthodox parties represented by Shas headed by Aryeh Deri won 9.11 percent. The United Torah Judaism party headed by Moshe Gafni won 7.23 percent. Far-right Avigdor Lieberman' Yisrael Beiteinu party, won 4.46 percent; the Hadash-Ta'al list formed by Ayman Odeh and Ahmad Tibi received 3.38 percent, and Labor headed by Merav Michaeli received 3.6 percent.

According to the above data, if the figures remained roughly in the same proportion when all votes are counted, it would mean that Likud would get 32 seats in the Knesset; Yesh Atid would get 23 seats; Religious Zionism 14; the National Camp 12; and Shas 12 seats. None of the other parties would get more than 9 seats each.

Projections based on these provisional results put the Netanyahu camp able to command 67 seats, and the Lapid camp getting 49. With 120 seats in the parliament, that would be enough for Netanyahu to have a simple majority and be able to form the next government of Israel.