Gantz, Netanyahu both claim victory in Israeli elections

Israel’s elections were too close to call on Tuesday night as both Benjamin Netanyahu and the former general trying to unseat him claimed victory, reports The Telegraph.  

"It's a night of tremendous victory," Mr Netanyahu told his own victory rally. "I was very moved that the nation of Israel once again entrusted me for the fifth time, and with an even greater trust."

Former army chief Benny Gantz countered that he was the real winner and appealed to Israel’s president to give him the first chance to form a government. 

"Elections have losers and elections have winners. And we are the winners," Mr Gantz told a victory rally shortly after midnight.

Even as the votes were being counted, both Mr Gantz and Mr Netanyahu were expected to begin contacting smaller party leaders and asking them to recommend that they lead the government.  

Mr Netanyahu said he had already begun talking to fellow right wing and religious parties about forming a new coalition.

"I want to make it clear, it will be a right-wing government, but I intend to be the prime minister of all Israeli citizens, right or left, Jews and non-Jews alike," he said.

As voting stations closed around the country, two early exit polls showed Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party tied with Blue & White, the centrist coalition led by Mr Gantz. Both parties had won around 36 seats. 

But as results trickled in throughout the night, the Likud appeared to be gaining strength. Two stations projected Likud to win 35 seats in parliament, compared to 34 for Blue and White. With about 60 percent of the votes counted, Likud held a narrow lead.

Though both parties were well short of a majority in the 120-seat parliament, the polls showed Likud and its religious and nationalist allies controlling a solid majority.

After all the votes are counted Reuven Rivlin, Israel’s president, will call all the party leaders for consultations before deciding who to task with forming the government.   

Whoever is given the job will spend weeks haggling and negotiating with other parties to try to form a 61-seat majority in Israel’s parliament.   

Mr Rivlin may urge the leaders of Likud and Blue & White to come together in a Centre-Right national unity government. 

If Mr Netanyahu is able to cling to power he will be on course to overtake David Ben Gurion, Israel’s founding father, as the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history. 

But his hold on the prime minister’s post is still threatened by pending criminal corruption charges against him, which will be finalised after a hearing this summer. 

Israeli prosecutors allege that Mr Netanyahu changed telecommunications regulations in return for more favourable media coverage and accepted bribes worth 1 million shekels (£200,000) in the form of lavish gifts from businessmen. 

Mr Netanyahu denies all wrongdoing and claims the prosecutions are part of a politically-motivated witch hunt against him and his family.  

Mr Netanyahu’s main campaign message was that he was an indispensable prime minister, whose personal relationships with world leaders like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin had lifted Israel to a stature far beyond its small size. 

He also tacked hard to the Right, promising to annex Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and antagonising Arab voters by saying Israel is “not a state of all its citizens” but only a nation state of the Jewish people.

In the final days and hours of the election, Mr Netanyahu issued feverish warnings that he was in danger of losing and called on all Right-wing voters to rally around his Likud party. 

His warnings appeared to have succeeded as Likud's share of seats grew at the expense of smaller Right-wing parties. 

However, Blue & White also appeared to have expanded by taking seats from the Labour party and others on the Left.  Mr Gantz, who over the course of 40 years in uniform rose from a commando to the head of Israel’s military, presented himself as a unifying figure with vast security experience.

He attacked Mr Netanyahu as a corrupt politician willing to tear the country apart to keep himself in power. 

“We are speaking about a corrupt man who is destroying the country,” Mr Gantz said on the campaign trail. “I offer myself as Israel's prime minister and together, we will take this new path."

Polls showed that turnout among Arab citizens of Israel, who make up 20 per cent of the Israeli population, had fallen sharply since the 2015 election. Two of the exit polls showed Arab parties winning only six or seven seats, compared to the 13 seats they won last time.

A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority said regardless of the final result it appeared that Israelis had “voted no to peace and yes to the occupation”.