Our live coverage of Israel's repeat general election has concluded for now, but you can read all about the next developments in our main story here.
Israeli election exit polls project Netanyahu in lead
By Andrew Carey, Oren Liebermann and Eliza Mackintosh, CNN
Updated 3:38 p.m. ET, March 3, 2020
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Two updated exit poll projections see Netanyahu bloc slip below 60
Two of the big three Israeli TV channels have updated their election projections to show Netanyahu’s preferred bloc slipping by one seat from 60 to 59.
Here are the updated projections:
Channel 12 News
Likud 37
Blue & White 32
Joint List 15
Yisrael Beiteinu 7
Shas 9
UTJ 7
Yamina 6
Labor-Gesher-Meretz 7
Channel 13 News
Likud 37
Blue & White 34
Joint List 14
Yisrael Beiteinu 6
Shas 9
UTJ 7
Yamina 6
Labor-Gesher-Meretz 7
There are 120 seats in the Knesset. A party needs to cross a threshold of 3.25% of the national vote to secure representation.
These updated projections produce blocs like this:
Channel 12 News
Netanyahu bloc 59
Gantz bloc 54
Yisrael Beiteinu 7
Channel 13 News
Netanyahu bloc 59
Gantz bloc 55
Yisrael Beiteinu 6
Excitement and relief at Likud election headquarters
From CNN's Oren Liebermann in Tel Aviv
Likud's election headquarters in Tel Aviv is filling up fast with excited supporters, who see this as an absolute victory for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Absolute excitement. A sense of relief, but also excitement that we ran a campaign that was positive, exciting, and that people responded. It’s a tremendous turnout. Excitement everywhere and it’s reflected over here as well,” Elie Pieprz, a Likud voter, told CNN.
Another Likud supporter, Hila Kiron, said that the mood felt drastically different to the last two elections.
It is a different feeling. I saw the crowd ... it's gonna be thousands of people. The feeling is I cant even describe it; it’s like we won. It seems like the media in Israel, and actually everyone wanted to see Bibi Netanyahu falling. It didn’t happen, it won’t happen," Kiron said.
This post has been updated.
Israel's third election in 11 months had a 71.0% turnout
Turnout in Israel’s general election was 71.0%, according to the country's Central Elections Commission. That compares with a figure in the September 2019 election of 69.4% and the April 2019 election of 67.9%
Through most of the day, turnout looked on track to be the highest in any Israeli election since 1999. But voting appears to have tailed off in the last two hours of polling, relatively speaking, and the final figure was lower than that seen in the 2015 election of 71.8%
"The wound is painful": Parties outside Netanyahu "bloc" reflect on exit polls
From CNN's Andrew Carey in Jerusalem
Senior Blue & White member Ofer Shelah admitted the exit poll projections were disappointing. “The wound is painful. We need to do the utmost to prevent a Netanyahu government,” he said on Israeli TV.
Retired General Yair Golan, of the center-left Labour-Gesher-Meretz alliance, also admitted the exit poll projections looked poor. “We need to rebuild the left-wing camp,” he said on Israeli TV.
Meanwhile, the leader of the Joint List of Arab parties, Ayman Odeh, hailed his party’s own success and slammed Blue & White. He called the projected result for the Joint List “the greatest parliamentary achievement [for Arab parties] since the first Knesset. The problem is Blue and White’s racist approach in seeking a Jewish majority. We succeeded. [Blue and White] failed.”
And Avigdor Liberman -- who has sought to carve out a kingmaker role since the first election in April -- struck a defiant tone. “The thing to do is to wait for the true results before we reach conclusions. We won’t budge an inch from what we promised,” he said.
Netanyahu tweets “thanks” after exit polls show his coalition leading
From Sharif Paget and Amir Tal
As polls closed in Israel’s general election Monday and three Israeli television polls projected that a coalition of Israel’s right-wing parties led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were on track to secure 60 seats in the 120-seat parliament, Netanyahu tweeted the word “thanks,” along with a red heart emoji.
A few minutes later, he posted a photo of himself, along with his wife Sara, his two sons Yair and Avner, and more than dozen young members of his campaign team, with a simple message: “a great victory for Israel.”
Israel’s right claims election victory
From Amir Tal
Israel’s right-wing parties are claiming victory after all three main exit polls projected a bloc led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- made up of his Likud, the hardline right-wing Yamina, and the two religious parties -- is on track to secure 60 seats in the 120-seat parliament.
A statement from Netanyahu’s Likud said the Prime Minister had spoken Monday evening with all party leaders in what the statement called the "national bloc" and they had “agreed to form a strong national government for Israel soon.”
It is not clear at this stage from where Netanyahu will take the seat, or seats, he would need to get a majority in parliament.
Back in April’s election, the same bloc of parties secured 60 seats in the Knesset but was still unable to form a government.
Coalition calculus: Which parties might join together to form a government?
Initial Israeli TV exit polls projected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party to be the winners in this election. But even if the final results bear out these projections, Netanyahu will still need to find partners to form a coalition government with a majority in the 120-seat parliament.
The most likely parties to partner with him are the hard-line right-wing Yamina party and the two religious parties, Shas and UTJ. But none of the exit polls project that this grouping would gain a majority of 61 seats — they all project this bloc falling one seat short of that.
A reminder: back in April, this Netanyahu bloc also won 60 seats, but were still unable to form a government.
Gantz’s Blue and White Party could secure the support of the Labor-Gesher-Meretz party, plus, perhaps, the Joint Arab List. But exit polls suggest that this bloc would only score between 52 and 54 seats — some way off a majority.
Kan News
Likud 36
Blue & White 33
Joint List 15
Yisrael Beiteinu 6
Shas 9
UTJ 8
Yamina 7
Labor-Gesher-Meretz 6
Channel 12 News
Likud 37
Blue & White 33
Joint List 14
Yisrael Beiteinu 6
Shas 9
UTJ 7
Yamina 7
Labor-Gesher-Meretz 7
Channel 13 News
Likud 37
Blue & White 32
Joint List 14
Yisrael Beiteinu 8
Shas 9
UTJ 8
Yamina 6
Labor-Gesher-Meretz 6
Exit polls: Likud projected to win most seats
Israel election exit polls project Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party to win more seats than its main challenger, the Blue and White party.
Below are the projections, from Israel’s three main news channels.
Note: Previous experience tells us that there can be considerable discrepancy between exit polls and actual results.
Kan News
Likud 36
Blue & White 33
Channel 12 News
Likud 37
Blue & White 33
Channel 13 News
Likud 37
Blue & White 32