Israelis went to the polls on Tuesday in the highest turnout in decades, with initial exit polls showing a slight edge but no majority for the opposition, meaning whoever can cobble together a coalition will form the next government.
The country's main pollsters projected the opposition bloc, led by ex-army chief Gadi Eisenkot, to win 52 or 53 seats, and ICC fugitive Netanyahu's bloc to win 50.
Arab lists made strong gains, with exit polls showing they won 17 or 18 seats combined.
Here are four possible scenarios:
Coalition
The parties will immediately begin negotiations to try to reach a 61-seat majority in the 120-member Knesset, but the path forward is far from clear.
President Isaac Herzog will name a candidate with the best chance to form a government, not necessarily the party with the most seats, which initial exit polls showed was Netanyahu's Likud.
The Arab parties, particularly Raam, have said they are open to working with Eisenkot's bloc, but the camp has kept them at arm's length, seeing their support as a liability during the campaign.
For Netanyahu's bloc, however, there is no obvious way to pick up more seats after some smaller right-wing parties failed to meet the vote threshold to enter parliament.
Coalition negotiations can be arduous, with parties insisting on parochial interests, and can produce unstable governments.
After the November 2022 election, Benjamin Netanyahu took 58 days to form his government.
Minority government
If no bloc secures 61 seats, a candidate could attempt to govern without a majority, instead relying on ad hoc support from other lawmakers.
In this scenario, lawmakers from the Arab parties, whose community makes up 20 percent of the population and generally identifies as Palestinian, could play a critical role.
Raam, led by Mansour Abbas, has been a kingmaker in the past, having been the first Arab party to join an Israeli government in a short-lived 2021-2022 coalition led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.
Another Arab movement, the Joint List, said it is unlikely to join a coalition government outright, but offered to provide a "safety net" for any one that ousts Netanyahu from power.
Political commentator Tal Elovitz said especially high Arab turnout "indicates a strong desire for partnership".
Eisenkot has not publicly even entertained the possibility, and Netanyahu in his campaign relentlessly told Jewish voters that a vote for the opposition could bring Arabs into government.
"Bottom line, at the moment it appears there is a possibility of forming a minority government headed by Eisenkot, but this could still shift depending on the final results," Elovitz said.
National unity government
Given Israel's extreme polarisation, a national unity government may seem fanciful, but it could theoretically create a less extreme government.
Israeli commentators have often mused about a national unity government in which Netanyahu would jettison his provocative far-right allies and ultra-Orthodox parties and team up with Eisenkot, who shares Netanyahu's views on many security issues.
Such a grand coalition would also exclude Arab parties.
A poll published on 16 October found that 55 percent of Israelis would prefer a national unity government over new elections if the vote did not produce a clear majority.
This scenario has a recent precedent. In 2020, Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, like Eisenkot, a retired general appealing to the centre, reached a power-sharing agreement after three elections in less than a year.
The agreement stipulated a rotation of the prime ministership, but the partnership fell apart after a year, triggering another election.
A unity government in the current situation would face strong opposition from both sides, particularly the opposition bloc, which has built its campaign around ousting Netanyahu and casting him as unfit to lead.
Deadlock and new elections
If no candidate manages to form a government, Israel will have to return to the polls.
The country held four elections between April 2019 and March 2021 because politicians could not forge a lasting coalition.
The president-designated candidate will, in principle, have 28 days to form a coalition, with a possible 14-day extension, although other procedural measures can prevent new elections from being called immediately.