Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid Thursday conceded defeat in the general elections and congratulated opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, whose coalition of right-wing parties secured a comfortable majority in parliament to form the next government and end the political impasse plaguing the country.

With 99 per cent of the ballots counted, Netanyahu-led right-wing bloc has taken a comfortable lead with 64 seats in the 120-member Knesset, paving way for his triumphant return.

Lapid, who has served as interim prime minister for the past four months, said that he called Netanyahu and congratulated him on his victory.

He further added that he’s instructed all departments of the Prime Minister’s Office to prepare for an orderly transfer of power.

“The State of Israel is above any political consideration,” Lapid said in a tweet. “I wish Netanyahu luck for the sake of the people of Israel and the State of Israel.”

Israelis voted on Tuesday for an unprecedented fifth time in four years to break the political impasse that has paralysed the Jewish nation.

According to the latest updates from the Central Elections Committee, Netanyahu’s Likud party will receive 31 seats, Prime Minister Lapid’s Yesh Atid 24, Religious Zionism 14, National Unity 12, Shas 11 and United Torah Judaism will have eight seats.

Among the smaller parties to have crossed the 3.25 per cent threshold required to qualify for the Knesset or parliament representation, Yisrael Beytenu will have six lawmakers, Ra’am is likely to win five seats along with Hadash-Ta’al. The Labour Party will win just four seats, according to the update.

The Left-wing Meretz party, which is hovering close to the threshold, seems to have slipped slightly even further from qualification.

Arab party Balad, which split from the broader coalition of the Arab parties to go independent, also seems to be failing the threshold mark.

The Netanyahu-led government would see a sharp drop in women in the coalition.

Current results project 9 female lawmakers in parties that back the former prime minister, with none among the ultra-Orthodox factions, according to the Times of Israel newspaper.

Based on these results, the likely Netanyahu-led coalition will have nine female lawmakers six in his Likud party and three from the far-right Religious Zionism, though the figure could end up rising through ministerial appointments.

The outcome marks a stunning comeback for Netanyahu, who is currently on trial in three corruption cases, after a short stint in opposition.

Israel has been locked in an unprecedented period of political stalemate since 2019, when Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving leader was charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

About 6.78 million Israeli citizens were eligible to elect their 25th Knesset.

Some 210,720 new voters were able to vote for the first time, accounting for about four to five seats, adding an interesting dimension to the polls.

Netanyahu’s return to power is likely to see an upward trajectory in Indo-Israel ties.

An advocate of strong bilateral ties with India, Netanyahu was the second Israeli Prime Minister to visit India in January 2018. Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his historic visit to Israel, the first by an Indian Prime Minister, in July 2017 when the chemistry’ between the two leaders became the subject of intense discussion.

India and Israel elevated their bilateral relations to a strategic partnership during Modi’s visit to Israel. Since then, the relationship between the two countries has focused on expanding knowledge-based partnership, which includes collaboration in innovation and research, including boosting the ‘Make in India’ initiative.

India’s relations with Israel have remained steady and strong even with the incumbent leadership, showing distinct signs of further progress with I2U2 (India, Israel, the United States and the United Arab Emirates) and discussions around a Free Trade Agreement, but it has not matched the heightened hype so visible with Netanyahu in power.

For many years, Netanyahu, Israel’s longest serving premier, appeared to be politically invincible. But he met with a rude jolt in 2021 after being ousted by an unprecedented coalition of parties whose only common goal was to see his ouster.

Born in Tel Aviv in 1949, Netanyahu holds the record of being the longest-serving Prime Minister in the country’s history.

Votes were still being counted and results were not final. But if preliminary indications were correct, Israel was potentially headed to its most right-wing government, bolstered by a strong showing from the ultranationalist Religious Zionism party, whose members use inflammatory anti-Arab and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.

The initial results pointed to a continued rightward shift in the Israeli electorate, further dimming hopes for peace with the Palestinians and setting the stage for possible conflict with the Biden administration and Israel’s supporters in the United States.

The early results also showed that Netanyahu had overcome his detractors, who claimed he was not fit to rule while on trial for corruption and refused to sit with him in government. Netanyahu’s partners have promised to help him evade a conviction. “We are on the verge of a very big victory,” Netanyahu, 73, told supporters at a gathering in Jerusalem early Wednesday. “I will establish a nationalist government that will see to all Israeli citizens without any exceptions.”

Elections officials worked through the night tallying votes and by Wednesday morning, about 85% of the ballots had been counted. The vote, like past elections, was tight but initial indications showed Netanyahu was headed back to the premiership with a majority in the country’s 120-seat parliament. Final results are expected on Friday.

The hundreds of thousands of remaining ballots — mostly from those who voted away from their regular place of residency, in nursing homes and elsewhere — have to be cross-checked for accuracy, a more time-consuming effort. They could lend a boost to Netanyahu’s opponents, reducing the size of his majority.

With Netanyahu and his allies projected to win more than the 61-seat majority needed to form a government, the country’s protracted political crisis may be headed toward a conclusion, though Israel remains as divided as ever.

Tuesday’s election was Israel’s fifth in less than four years, with all of them focused largely on Netanyahu’s fitness to govern. On trial for a slew of corruption charges, Netanyahu, who denied wrongdoing, is seen by supporters as the victim of a witch hunt and vilified by opponents as a crook and threat to democracy.

Even if Netanyahu and his allies emerge victorious, it could still take weeks of negotiations for a coalition government to be formed. Netanyahu was Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, governing for 12 consecutive years – and 15 years altogether – before he was ousted last year by a diverse coalition led by the centrist Yair Lapid, the current caretaker prime minister.

But the coalition that Lapid cobbled together, which included the first Arab party ever to join a government, was decimated by infighting and collapsed after just one year in power. Those parties were poised to capture about 50 seats, according to initial results.

Lapid, addressing supporters early Wednesday, insisted that the race was not decided. “Until the last envelope is counted, nothing is over and nothing is final,” he said.

Isreal braces for far-right Zionists in office 
The night’s strongest showing was by the far-right Religious Zionism party, which emerged as the third-largest party. At an all-male campaign gathering in Jerusalem, religious men wearing Jewish skullcaps and waving Israeli flags danced in celebration. At the celebration, supporters of the party’s top candidate, Itamar Ben-Gvir, chanted “Death to terrorists.”

Ben-Gvir is a disciple of a racist rabbi, Meir Kahane, who was banned from parliament and whose Kach party was branded a terrorist group by the United States before he was assassinated in New York in 1990. Kahane’s agenda called for banning intermarriage between Arabs and Jews, stripping Arabs of Israeli citizenship and expelling large numbers of Palestinians.

But while Kahane was seen as a pariah, Ben-Gvir is one of Israel’s most popular politicians, thanks to his frequent media appearances, cheerful demeanour, a knack for deflecting criticism and calls for a harder line against Palestinians at a time of heavy fighting in the occupied West Bank. Young ultra-Orthodox men are among his strongest supporters.

Ben-Gvir lives in the hard-line West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba and is a strong proponent of settlement construction. He has described Arab colleagues in parliament as “terrorists,” called for deporting those who are “disloyal” and recently brandished a handgun in a tense Palestinian neighbourhood of Jerusalem as he called on police to shoot Palestinian stone-throwers.

“We want to make a total separation between those who are loyal to the state of Israel — and we don’t have any problem with them — and those who undermine our dear country,” he said. Muhammad Shtayyeh, the Palestinian prime minister, said the rise of Israel’s far-right was “a natural result of the growing manifestations of extremism and racism in Israeli society.”

It appeared as though two of the three parties representing the country’s 20% Palestinian minority earned enough votes for a spot in parliament, as polls had predicted. But it was unclear whether Meretz, a dovish party that opposes Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and a member of the current coalition, would make it into parliament.

If the Netanyahu alliance ends up controlling a majority, Ben-Gvir and his party leader, Bezalel Smotrich, are sure to drive a hard bargain. Ben-Gvir has said he will demand the Cabinet post overseeing Israel’s police force. The pair have also said they will seek legal reforms aimed at weakening the independence of the judiciary and giving parliament power to override court decisions they don’t like. That could clear the way for the dismissal of criminal charges against Netanyahu. Smotrich and other members of the party have also made repeated anti-LGBTQ comments.

Such positions could put a future Netanyahu government on a collision course with the Biden administration, which supports a two-state solution with the Palestinians. It could also alienate Israeli allies in the U.S., particularly the predominantly liberal Jewish-American community.

In Israel, voters vote for parties, not individual politicians. No party has ever won a majority on its own, and coalition-building is necessary to govern.

Tensions meanwhile rose Wednesday as a Palestinian slammed his car into an Israeli army officer near the Maccabim checkpoint between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The soldier, seriously injured, opened fire on the man, the military said. The Palestinians said the suspected attacker, Habas Abdel Hafeez Yousef Rayan, 54, died soon after.