Israelis voted on Tuesday, October 27, in what analysts describe as the country's most consequential election in years, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fighting to keep his job against a challenge led by former army chief Gadi Eisenkot.

It is the first nationwide vote since the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, which killed 1,195 people in Israel and saw 251 taken hostage. The war that followed in Gaza, where the Palestinian Health Ministry says about 74,500 people have since died, and the eight-month conflict with Iran have dominated the campaign.

How the vote works

According to NBC News, 7,331,981 citizens are eligible to vote at more than 12,000 polling stations, which opened at 7am and close at 10pm local time (11pm in Nairobi). Israelis vote for party lists rather than individual candidates, and a party needs at least 3.25 per cent of the national vote to win seats in the 120-member Knesset.

No party has ever won an outright majority of 61 seats, so the result is unlikely to be clear on election night. Official results are due within eight days. President Isaac Herzog will then ask a lawmaker to form a government, a process that can take up to seven weeks. If it fails, fresh elections can be called within 90 days.

Eisenkot ahead, but no clear majority

Final opinion polls put Eisenkot's Yashar party narrowly ahead of Netanyahu's Likud. An average of four polls compiled by The Jerusalem Post gave Yashar 22 seats against 19.75 for Likud, with former prime minister Naftali Bennett's B'Yachad third on 14.5.

The same average gave opposition parties 54 seats against 49.5 for Netanyahu's bloc, leaving both short of a majority. Arab parties, projected to win about 14.5 seats combined, and smaller parties hovering near the threshold could decide who is able to form a government.

Eisenkot, 66, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces who lost a son in Gaza, briefly served in Netanyahu's war cabinet. His central promise is an independent state commission of inquiry into the failures of October 7, which Netanyahu opposes. He has backed a long-term ceasefire and pledged to remove Hamas from power within 18 months of taking office.

"We're not choosing a Hollywood actor. We're choosing a prime minister," Kobi Marum, a former army officer who served with Eisenkot, told NBC News.

Netanyahu's high-stakes test

Netanyahu, who has led Israel for nearly 19 of the past 30 years, is campaigning on security and his close ties with US President Donald Trump. He continues to face a long-running domestic trial on fraud, breach of trust and bribery charges, which he calls a politically motivated witch hunt, and an International Criminal Court arrest warrant over the Gaza war.

Israeli political analyst Dahlia Scheindlin told NBC News the vote was "a referendum on what Netanyahu has come to represent following Oct. 7".

Security fears hung over polling day. On Monday, Netanyahu warned that Iran or its proxies could try to disrupt the vote, saying, according to the Associated Press, that the military "is ready both to defend and to strike." Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel had no intention of attacking Iran before the election.

Other issues include the military draft exemption for ultra-Orthodox Jews, who make up nearly 15 per cent of the population, and the cost of living.

Why it matters for Kenya

The outcome will shape the direction of the Iran war, which has pushed global crude prices above $110 a barrel and fed into higher pump prices in Kenya. A Netanyahu win, NBC News noted, could mean the conflict with Iran intensifies, while Eisenkot has signalled a different approach to Gaza.

The vote is also being watched by families of Kenyans working in Israel, many of them on farms under a government labour-export arrangement agreed during the war. Kenya and Israel have maintained close security, agriculture and trade ties under successive Israeli governments.

Exit polls are expected shortly after voting ends, but the shape of the next government may not be known for weeks.

Photos: NBC News/Reuters (Likud campaign billboard); Ronen Horesh/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Gadi Eisenkot)