Israel election 2026: bereaved families of 7 October open record-turnout vote at hostages square
On Israel election 2026 day, bereaved families of the 7 October attacks held a minute of silence at 6.29am in Tel Aviv's 'hostages square', urging voters to remember the victims, as turnout shattered all records including tens of thousands flying in from overseas.
Israel election 2026: bereaved families of 7 October open record-turnout vote at hostages square
Families mark the hour of the attack
Election day in Israel began with grief rather than campaign slogans. Bereaved families of the 7 October victims gathered in a Tel Aviv plaza known as 'hostages square' - the centre of demonstrations demanding the return of more than 200 captives from Gaza - and stood for a minute of silence at 6.29am, the moment Hamas launched its onslaught just over three years ago.
The families' group called on the public to carry the victims with them into the polling booth, without naming any party.
"Three years after the massacre, our loved ones will not be voting today. Go out and vote – remember them at the ballot box."
A state commission of inquiry into the attacks remains a key demand of the families, one that Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted, and which has become a rallying point for the opposition parties.
Voters fly in to cast a ballot
As the day wore on, turnout was shattering all records, and among those lining up were tens of thousands of Israelis who live overseas. Because electoral law only allows voting in person, a bipartisan 'Fly&Vote' initiative sprang up to support Israelis making the journey back.
The arrivals came from across the map, with very different ballots in mind:
- Monica Moria, 58, flew from Barcelona with her husband Ron and travelled to the kibbutz where she is registered to vote for the Democrats, the most leftwing of the Jewish Israeli parties.
- Kobi Mizrahi, 35, a PhD student in New York, paid more than $1,600 to return for just a few days, fearing that a loss to what he called the 'Bibi coalition' might be a turning point Israel could not come back from.
- Yuval Schwarzfuchs, 26, travelled from Rio de Janeiro via Ethiopia to Jerusalem to vote for the Palestinian-led Joint List, saying it was about equality for all.
Moria said Israel seemed to her to have lost its way.
"It feels like Israel has lost its way, there are deep divisions and hatreds that will be very difficult to heal."
Schwarzfuchs voted wearing a T-shirt showing Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who had defied the polls to win re-election the previous weekend.
A first-time vote in Efrat
In the settlement of Efrat near Jerusalem, Shani, 19, cast her first ballot for the far-right party of finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, herself a supporter of a politician who is a settler. She pointed to his promises to expand Israel's footprint in the occupied territories and improve security.
Her mother Rivka, a kindergarten teacher, also backed Smotrich and said her priority was returning Netanyahu's coalition to office, warning that otherwise there was a chance of a Palestinian state that would be very bad for Jews.
More than 500,000 Israelis have reached voting age since the last election in 2022, and a Channel 12 poll found three-quarters of first-time Jewish voters define themselves as right or centre-right - a survey that did not cover Palestinian citizens of Israel. For the Efrat voters interviewed, settler attacks on Palestinians and the threat of sanctions on settlement goods were not key election issues.
The Palestinian Israeli vote
Palestinian Israeli voters represent about a fifth of eligible voters, expected to split between Ra'am, led by Mansour Abbas, and the Joint List alliance. Their weight matters: even if Eisenkot's opposition bloc wins more seats than Netanyahu's coalition, it is not expected to reach an outright majority, and it has ruled out going into coalition with the Palestinian Israeli parties - which could well hold the balance of power.
Amjad Shbita, general secretary of Hadash, the leading Joint List party, thought that arithmetic could change after the votes are counted.
"He cannot sit down [in coalition] with Netanyahu, and he won't want to go back to another round of elections, so we think he can"
In Nazareth, the largest Palestinian-majority town in Israel, turnout at polling stations was noticeably higher than at recent elections, though below the national Jewish average, with an evening surge expected.
The Joint List's main worry was far-right election monitors at predominantly Palestinian polling stations, which the party said were meant to slow the process down so that people would wait and give up. Shbita said the ploys could stretch voting to half an hour at worst, rather than a couple of minutes.
Still, he described a motivated electorate, noting it is the first time in a long while that a government has stayed in office for its full four-year term, and spoke of the racism faced by Arab society across Israeli life.
Voting was expected to surge into the evening, with the result deciding whether Netanyahu's coalition keeps office or Eisenkot's bloc - which has ruled out partnering with the Palestinian Israeli parties - gets the chance to form a government.
