Live: Polls to close in Israel's most seismic election in decades

Polling indicates Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could face a stiff challenge to hold onto power in a vote largely seen as a referendum on his leadership and handling of Hamas's October 7 attacks.

His main challenger is Gadi Eisenkot, a former Israeli military chief who leads the newly established Yashar opposition party.

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Back in Rehavia, a few more voters shared their views on the election with us.

Menachem Lorberbaum said his vote was "private," when asked who he backed at the ballot box.

But he said there was "no doubt" it was time for a change of leadership.

"You don't have to vote for [Gadi] Eisenkot or for anybody, you know, on that side to see that, to speak to people on the street and they'll tell you that people have to know when it's time to go home," he said.

Menachem added that Israel was "undergoing a very deep realignment" of values and attitudes.

"The shifts and the deep divides are elsewhere from where they were 30 years ago, and I think you see this quite dramatically," he said.

Israel is in a different place today ... no democracy is perfect, no polity is perfect, but I think that this is one of the most dramatic tests of the ability of the self-corrective principles within a republic, a democratic republic, to renew itself.”

That division Menachem was speaking about was perhaps evident on some of the Likud party flyers being handed out to voters as they arrived at the primary school.

For weeks, Mr Netanyahu has painted his political opponents as being supporters of the Palestinian cause, as he tries to whip up support and fear about the issue.

His flyers read "Right or Palestine," which in Hebrew rhymes, and featured photos of the anti-Netanyahu party leaders such as Gadi Eisenkot, Yair Golan, Avigdor Liberman and the leaders of the two Arab-Palestinian groups running at the election, Yousef Jabareen and Mansour Abbas.

Netanyahu support Etti Brand was clutching one as she arrived to vote.

"He is the only one," she said of the prime minister when asked who she was voting for.

"Yair Golan and Eisenkot are going to bring us to Palestine."

We spent a bit of time talking to voters at a primary school in the Jerusalem suburb of Rehavia earlier in the day.

It's just around the corner from Benjamin Netanyahu's personal residence in the city, and a short drive from the prime minister's official Jerusalem home.

It was also where Israeli president Isaac Herzog cast his ballot.

Something we've heard a lot in recent weeks from critics of Mr Netanyahu is that it's 'time for him to go home.'

And some of the residents we spoke to certainly agreed with that sentiment.

Meira Partem didn't say which party she specifically backed, but said she had voted for a "new dawn" - a government without Mr Netanyahu at the helm.

"First of all, it's not democratic, it's the same Prime Minister for so many years.

"The second thing, after this terrible semi-Holocaust that happened here in my Jewish sovereign state, anyone should have stepped down and apologised.

"And the gall not to do that is very, very disturbing.”

She's talking there about accountability for the defence and security failures which allowed the October 7 attacks to occur in 2023, where around 1,200 Israelis were killed and 251 taken hostage.

Meira described the prime minister as an "opportunist" who would work with any partner as long as it meant holding on to power.

"If a prime minister tries to have everybody loyal to him, and not to the country, not to the law, that's destructive to the country.”

Mr Netanyahu did have support in Rehavia.

"I'm voting Bibi, obviously, because he's our wartime leader and we're still mid-war," voter Yosef Abraham told us.

"I think anybody who wants the government to switch is actually anti-Israel, he wants us to get weaker, because mid-war, you don't change leadership.

“I think we need other leadership in different times, but right now we have to continue to support Bibi.”

Mr Abraham had very strong views about the Palestinian or Arab citizens of Israel, and insisted they needed to assimilate or leave.

“Each Arab can place the flag of Israel in their schools, in their houses, and then they remain citizens,” he said.

“If they refuse, they are our enemy from within, and we need to cleanse them out.”

20 per cent of Israel's population are of Palestinian or Arab descent, and they typically have a much lower turnout at elections as a result of decades of marginalisation.

It's still early, and polls haven't closed.

But Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party HQ is buzzing... with journalists.

No members of the public are filling the hall at the moment.

There are bundles of Likud party placards sitting in plastic wrapping on the side of the room, for when those supporters do materialise.

We're in a large hall in central Jerusalem, along with hundreds of journalists from around the world.

While you were sleeping, Israeli citizens voted for their next prime minister.

The polls are set to close in the next hour, but due to the country's parliamentary system, the winner won't be immediately obvious.

In Israel, the leader who can assemble a governing coalition with a majority of 61 or more Knesset seats takes office and this can take several weeks of political negotiations.

The incumbent, Benjamin Netanyahu, has polled poorly leading into the election despite an endorsement from great ally Donald Trump.

After three years of Israel's war with Gaza and most recently the war it launched with the US against Iran in February, the world has its eyes on the outcome of the election.

To make sense of the complex political system and what it means internationally and on Australian shores, Middle East correspondents and academics will join us on the blog this morning.

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