Israel votes: Herzog warns against undermining election as row erupts over Likud app
More than 7.3 million eligible voters are electing a new Knesset. Bennett's party accuses Likud of tracking voters via an app; the election committee says it has no such reports.
Archive image · Photo: PikiWiki – Israel free image collection project / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain (cropped and resized)
Israelis are voting in their first parliamentary election since the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023. Polls opened at 7 a.m. local time and most close at 10 p.m.; more than 7.3 million people are eligible to vote, with 36 party lists competing for 120 seats. President Isaac Herzog voted in the morning and said no one can be allowed to spoil or undermine the election, The Times of Israel reported. Opinion polls point to a tight race with no clear winner, according to AP.
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's B'Yachad party accused Likud representatives of using a smartphone app at polling stations to track voters and pass information to the party, and filed a complaint. The Central Elections Committee said it had so far received no reports of such activity, adding that one isolated case of photography at a polling station stopped after the rules were explained. In Dimona, police are investigating after a billboard of Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar party was set on fire.
Party leaders struck contrasting notes as they voted. Itamar Ben-Gvir of Otzma Yehudit warned of "a Mansour Abbas government", while Bezalel Smotrich of Religious Zionism said Israel does not gamble with its security, existence or identity. Avigdor Liberman said the era of Netanyahu and ultra-Orthodox rule must end. Eisenkot began the day at Kibbutz Nir Oz and accused the government of still evading responsibility three years after the failure. First results are expected overnight.