i24NEWS poll: Hypothetical alliance predicted to sweep elections – will Netanyahu be replaced?

A new i24NEWS poll on Tuesday shows the current coalition falling to just 50 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, Israel's parliament.

The survey, conducted with the Timur Group in conjunction with iPanel, made several surprising predictions.

It was found that, while the current coalition would fall from power, the National Unity party led by Benny Gantz would lead the Likud party, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, by just one seat.

In addition, a hypothetical party made up of politicians Yisrael Beiteinu head Avigdor Liberman, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, and New Hope's Gideon Sa'ar – along with former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen – would receive 33 seats. Netanyahu is found to be clearly lagging behind Bennett.

First, we checked what the full mandate picture would look like if the elections were held today. At the top of the list is the National Unity party with 22 mandates, followed immediately by Likud with only 21 mandates. Further down the list - Yesh Atid would get 15 mandates, Yisrael Beiteinu would have 14, Shas would maintain its strength with 11, Otzma Yehudit would receive 10, and United Torah Judaism would only have eight seats.

The Democrats - the united party of Labor and Meretz, which is being polled for the first time in our polls – would win eight seats. Ra'am would jump to six seats and Hadash-Ta'al would only enjoy five seats. Religious Zionism, New Hope, Religious Zionism, and Balad would not receive enough votes to pass the threshold.

The updated constituency map includes 50 mandates for the current coalition, and 65 for the opposition, with Hadash-Ta'al in the middle with five mandates.

Next, we checked how many seats a joint party of Liberman, Saar, Bennett, and Cohen would win, coming out with 33 mandates, bringing the Likud down to 17, National Unity down to 14, and Yesh Atid to 11.

In the issue of suitability for the prime minister's office, Gantz leads by four percent over Netanyahu, who leads by two percent over Lapid. Meanwhile, Netanyahu would have a six percent advantage over Liberman on his suitability for prime minister.

Netanyahu's main decline, according to our poll, is to Bennett. The data show that Bennett has 41 percent approval, compared to only 28 percent for Netanyahu.

We also asked how Israelis think the war in the north should end, what should be the next step of Israel in the war in the Gaza Strip, and when should Israel go to elections.

The results show that 52 percent of respondents believe that more force should be used and a full-scale war must be waged against Hezbollah, while 48 percent believe that a ceasefire should be achieved in Lebanon. Also, 55 percent of respondents believe that the fight in Gaza must continue, and 45 percent of those surveyed responded that the fighting should end and switch to targeted operations. Finally, 42 percent of respondents said they believe there is a need for an election now, while 33 percent believe that after the end of the fight, and a quarter responded that elections should be held in their original date, October 2026.

The survey was conducted by Timur Group in collaboration with iPanel and included 500 respondents who had the right to vote, of which 100 (or 20 percent) were from the Arab sector. The sampling error is 4.4 percent.