Israel heads to the polls as shift to the right dominates critical election

What the report says

Israel went to the polls on Tuesday in a closely watched election that Al Jazeera described as one of the most consequential in the country’s history. The vote was the first since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023 and the ensuing war in Gaza, alongside broader regional fighting that has involved strikes on Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Qatar.

The article said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, was seeking another term while heading a right-wing governing coalition built with far-right ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox parties. He is also facing an International Criminal Court warrant over alleged war crimes in Gaza and a long-running corruption trial, which the report said have added to the stakes of the contest. His main challengers, it said, represent a bloc that is also broadly right-leaning, rather than a traditional left-wing alternative.

Al Jazeera reported that the campaign centered on accountability for security failures, disputes over military service for ultra-Orthodox Jews and efforts to sideline Arab-led parties. Analysts quoted in the piece said Israel’s political shift to the right has been building for years, but accelerated sharply under Netanyahu’s latest government, especially through efforts to weaken the Supreme Court and the influence of figures such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

The broader significance, according to the report, is whether the election changes the political tone more than the underlying direction of policy. Even if Netanyahu loses, observers said any successor would still face a public and political landscape shaped by the aftermath of the 2023 attack, the Gaza war and continuing violence in the occupied West Bank.