Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party appears to be the largest party, the country's election results indicate, Haaretz reported.
However, the votes show that the Netanyahu-led bloc failed to secure a 61-seat majority to form a government and was closely followed by Benny Gantz's Kahol Lavan party, reports say.
The Netanyahu-led bloc won 58 seats, followed by Ganz’s bloc with 55. Likud remains at 36 seats, as does Kahol Lavan with 33, and the Joint List with 15.
Monday’s election was the third in 11 months – the first two were in April and September 2019 – and was aimed at putting an end to the political deadlock that has been ongoing since the end of 2018. Likud pulled slightly ahead in both previous votes, but was each time unable to get enough coalition partners to secure the needed majority.
In the previous two rounds of voting, held last April and September, Netanyahu’s bloc similarly failed to secure a parliamentary majority and no coalition was formed.