On election day, some settlers pass over Netanyahu in favor of far-right partners

Settlers in West Bank communities voted Tuesday and several told reporters they had soured on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, shifting toward far-right partners Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. At a Kiryat Arba polling station, voters cited the October 7, 2023 attack and the future of settlements. Pre-vote polls showed Netanyahu neck and neck with Gadi Eisenkot.

Settlers in the West Bank voted in Israel's general election on Tuesday, and some told reporters they were moving away from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toward his far-right coalition partners. At a polling station in Kiryat Arba, the settlement home of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, 22-year-old bookstore employee Lishay Cooper said Netanyahu had made mistakes and could not be counted on. "We need someone stronger," she said, naming Ben Gvir or Moshe Feiglin, a Smotrich-aligned candidate. She said she moved further right after losing friends in Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack. Meir Menahem, 67, voting shortly after Ben Gvir cast his own ballot, said the future of the settler movement and the Jewish character of the country drove his vote, faulting mainstream parties for secular judicial frameworks. Eliya Tzeiri, a 22-year-old yeshiva student, said an Eisenkot-led coalition would evacuate new settlements. The last polls before the vote showed Netanyahu running neck and neck with Gadi Eisenkot, a centrist and former military chief. More than 500,000 settlers live in the West Bank, alongside over three million Palestinians. The article states more than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed by soldiers and settlers since October 7, most of them gunmen or rioters according to the IDF, and nearly 50 Israelis killed in attacks or military operations. Since the current government took office in 2022, more than 100 new settlements have been founded or retroactively legalized, against six formally approved in the 30 years after the Oslo Accords.