Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid congratulated former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his victory in Tuesday’s parliamentary election. In a statement, he said his staff is preparing for a transfer of power.
Israel’s electoral authorities announced on Thursday that Netanyahu’s party and related conservative parties have secured a majority in parliament. Netanyahu’s right-wing religious camp won 64 of the 120 seats, one less than in the latest forecast, but enough for Netanyahu to return as prime minister.
Netanyahu’s Likud party becomes the largest party in parliament, with 32 deputies. The bloc of outgoing Prime Minister Lapid was stuck at 51 seats, his party Yesh Atid came in second with 24 seats.
Netanyahu (73) has been prime minister several times, most recently until June last year and for a total of more than 15 years. This makes him the longest-serving head of government in Israel’s history. He has also been involved in several corruption cases for years.
It was the fifth time in less than four years that Israelis have been able to elect a new parliament after the incumbent coalition lost its narrow majority in parliament earlier this year and failed to regain it.
Later Thursday, air raid sirens went off in three places in southern Israel near the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military reported that four rockets were fired from Gaza. One was intercepted, three others exploded, according to the Israelis “within the Gaza Strip”. These were the first rockets fired from the Gaza Strip since early August, when Israel responded to Palestinian Islamic Jihad rockets with airstrikes. That conflict lasted three days.
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