Netanyahu’s Likud party gains strength since start of war — poll

A poll released by the Channel 13 news network, the first since the outbreak of war with Iran, finds Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party gaining strength, but the Netanyahu coalition still falling short of a majority in the Knesset.

Respondents are asked which party they would vote for if elections were held today.

Netanyahu’s Likud party climbs from 24 seats to 27 since a poll conducted by the network last week, before the war. Likud regains its place as the largest party.

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett’s newly formed faction, temporarily named Bennett 2026, drops from 27 seats to 24.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party falls from nine seats to six.

Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu and Yair Golan’s Democrats party each receive 11 seats in today’s poll, while the Haredi Shas party gets 10 seats.

Opposition chief Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, Benny Gantz’s National Unity, and the Haredi UTJ each get seven seats.

The Arab-led Hadash-Ta’al faction gets six seats, and the Arab Ra’am party led by Mansour Abbas, four.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party and the Arab Balad fail to clear the electoral threshold of 3.25%.

Netanyahu’s coalition bloc receives 50 seats, far short of a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. Opposition parties receive 60 seats, and the Arab-led parties have 10. Arab majority parties have traditionally shunned coalitions, though Islamist Ra’am broke that trend when it joined a Bennett-led coalition in 2021-2022.

The survey says that 75% of the public supports the war with Iran, 17% oppose entering the war, and eight percent don’t know.

A majority of respondents — 64% — say they believe Netanyahu launched the war to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missiles, and 28% say Netanyahu was motivated by domestic politics.

The poll has an error margin of 3.9%. The network does not provide a sample size.