Polls open in Israel's parliamentary election amid West Bank lockdown

Political figures and millions of voters in Israel are heading out to the polls to elect 120 members of their parliament in the first general vote since the October 7 Hamas attack in 2023 that led to the war in Gaza.

The voting officially kicked off at 7am local time and would close at 10pm.

The main competition for the largest number of seats in parliament, or the Knesset, is between incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, a security hawk with backers on the right and in the centre.

Netanyahu, the country's longest-serving leader, has touted US President Donald Trump's endorsement for his reelection bid on eve of vote.

Trump added to the speculation of a new round of attacks to remove the Iranian threat, saying they were prepared to act again if Netanyahu remained in power.

Blasting Netanyahu of "relying on a campaign of fear-mongering, lies and threats," opposition leader Eisenkot said he believed Trump would cooperate with "any leader chosen by the people."

A party or coalition needs to secure 61 seats in the Israeli parliament to rule. Eisenkot's Yashar party was narrowing leading Netanyahu's Likud party in recent polls, though Knesset majority is still out of reach for both.

AP journalist Sam Mednick said, "You can see behind me people there are lining up to vote to get to that classroom. Now this election is widely seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his handling of the security failures of October 7th."

She said, "The voting is going to go well into this evening. We're going to start seeing an indication in the exit polls of where things stand later, but it could be weeks or even months before Israelis know who their next prime minister will be."

Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who leads ultra-nationalist party Otzma Yehudit, cast his vote in Kiryat Arba in the occupied West Bank.

President Isaac Herzog was joined by his wife as they went to the ballot boxes in Jerusalem Tuesday morning.

Herzog praised the work of the electoral commission and reminded citizens to "take their destiny into their own hands."

Analysts suggest Arab-led parties that target a minority of Israeli citizens could emerge as kingmakers.

In Galilee, head of the Islamist Ra'am party, Mansour Abbas, voted in hopes that record turnout in Arab communities could help unseat Netanyahu's right-wing government.

Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has sounded the alarm over Israel's West Bank demolition that forced displacement of thousands of Palestinians.

Guterres stated in Cairo in one of his final trips as UN chief that the spectre of "ethnic cleansing" was looming ever larger and prompted the international society to lift Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid to Gaza.