Arab parties Ra'am, Joint List soar to 17-18 seats amid high turnout, election exit polls show

Israel's two main Arab parties, Ra'am and the Joint List, were projected to win seven and 11 seats, respectively, according to exit polls published by Channels 11, 12, and 13.The projections would give the two parties combined 18 seats in the 120-member Knesset, compared with their five seats each in the outgoing parliament.

The Joint List this year comprises Hadash, a left-wing Arab-Jewish communist party, Ta'al, a secular Arab nationalist party, and Balad, a left-wing Palestinian nationalist party. Ra'am and the Joint List are unlikely to join a governing coalition, as parties allied with Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, most notably the parties headed by Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, as well as Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Liberman in the opposition, have ruled out including Arab parties in a government.

However, Ra'am or the Joint List could still play a role in determining whether either bloc can secure the 61 seats needed for a Knesset majority, including by supporting a government from outside the coalition.

The Arab Israeli turnout at this election was significantly higher than in previous years, according to the Central Elections Committee. The unrecognized Bedouin village of Atuana, for example, registered the highest turnout in the country by early noon, at 64%, and two other villages placed second and fourth, at 47.9% and 47.8% respectively.Arab Israeli vote under scrutinyThe Arab Israeli vote in Israel on Tuesday drew significant attention, with Likud's election integrity headquarters claiming that it had received 620 reports of unusual incidents and suspected irregularities at polling stations in the Arab sector, collected through a network of over 1,500 representatives across the country.

About one-third of the reports concern the recording of voters' personal information and the transmission of information outside polling stations. Some 66 reports concern irregularities involving ballot papers and envelopes, 26 involve difficulties verifying voters' identities and exercising polling station committee members' authority, and 17 concern violence and threats.

The remaining reports involve staffing deficiencies, election campaigning, and documentation issues.“We categorically reject attempts by elements within the police to link Ra'am to the compromising of electoral integrity,” the Ra'am party said in response to the incident. “The activists were arrested at their homes hours before the polls opened, not in the vicinity of polling stations or voters.“These are baseless arrests intended to undermine Ra'am and suppress voter turnout within Arab society, as part of [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir's political exploitation of Israel Police.”'We want to replace the current gov't in almost every way,' Ra'am chairman Abbas says "This is a historic day," Joint List chairman Prof. Yousef Jabareen said on Tuesday night amid election exit polls indicating that Arab voters had turned out in unexpectedly large numbers.

"The public has spoken," Jabareen said. "The blood-stained government must go. We have proven that we are a political force that cannot be ignored, and that a future cannot be built here without our voice.""Arab society has reacted to this government's policy," Ra'am chairman Mansour Abbas told Israel's Channel 12 on Tuesday night as late-stage exit polls for the 2026 elections came in. "We want to replace it in almost every possible way," he added.

Abbas hoped the final results would let the opposition bloc and Ra'am reach 61 seats together, but said, "With the numbers we have now, there is no government."Keshet Neev contributed to this report. This is a developing story.