With almost all 4,612,007 ballots cast in the March 2 elections counted down, the Central Elections Committee (CEC) released on Thursday the near-final results showing Likud is the country's biggest party with 36 seats and main rivals, Blue & White, trail behind with 33.
The third-largest party is the Joint List with 15 seats; followed by Shas with 9 seats, United Torah Judaism with 7, Yisrael Beytenu with 7, Labor-Gesher-Meretz with 7 and Yamina with 6 seats.
The right-wing bloc; which consists of Likud, United Torah Judaism, Shas and Yamina; has only managed to muster 58 seats - 3 short of a majority in the 120-strong Knesset needed to form a viable majority government.
The CEC published the results after it completed tallying the 4,076 ballots cast at the colloquially called "corona polls" - 16 specially designated polling stations for Israelis who are in quarantine for exposure to the coronavirus.
Six ballot boxes containing over 4,000 votes will be recounted due to suspected errors, presumably not an intentional forgery.
The final voter turnout in the March 2020 election was 71.46% - an increase from the previous elections in September, in which 69.8% of those with voting rights arrived at the polls.
Out of the 6,453,255 citizens recorded in the voters' register, 4,612,007 people cast their votes.
Election officials have disqualified 25,053 invalid votes. The electoral threshold stands at 3.25%, which equals to 149,004 votes. Each seat equals to 37,897 votes.
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Election officials counting ballots at the so-called 'corona polls'
(Photo: Shaul Golan)
In the coming days, the CEC will further recount thousands of polls to rule out any counting errors.
Shortly before the results were published, Likud petitioned the CEC to delay the publication of the results until all protocols and sheets at the polls were reviewed.
"Likud expects that as long as these documents aren't duly handed over to it and all perusal and error correction procedures are not completed - the CEC will refrain from publishing the results," the party's statement read.
Knesset CEO Albert Sakharovich announced Thursday that the inauguration ceremony of the 23rd Knesset on March 17 will be held for the first time without an audience, with the exception of the spouses of "high-level government personal", due to concerns over the coronavirus.
The pre-inaugural reception for the MKs will also be canceled.