JERUSALEM _ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main rival both claimed victory in Tuesday's election after exit polls pointed to a virtual dead heat in a fiercely contested race _ presaging a new fight on the battleground of the country's arcane system of coalition-building.
Two of the main exit polls pointed to a narrow loss for Netanyahu's Likud party _ but that result, if borne out, could still leave the prime minister better positioned than his rival, former military chief of staff Benny Gantz, to form a coalition government. A third exit poll suggested the two major parties had fought to a draw.
The muddled preliminary picture followed a polarizing campaign that left open the prospect of either a sharp turn to the right or a more centrist approach spearheaded by Gantz, who led a new alliance called the Blue and White party.
As is normal in Israeli elections, no party alone won a parliamentary majority, but the key now is which one can form political partnerships that will allow it to rule.
Netanyahu said his right-wing bloc had triumphed, though he did not claim that his party alone had garnered the most seats.
"The right-wing bloc led by the Likud won a clear victory," he said in a Hebrew-language tweet. "I thank the citizens of Israel for their trust. I will begin forming a right-wing government with our natural partners tonight."
Gantz's victory declaration, issued jointly with his deputy, former Finance Minister Yair Lapid, had a more exuberant tone.
"We won! The Israeli public has had their say!" the pair said in a statement.
President Reuven Rivlin, whose post is largely symbolic, is tasked with picking the leader who will be asked to form a government. As the projections trickled in, attention in the wee hours of Wednesday quickly turned to prospects for coalition deal-making.
Shas, a party representing Sephardic Jews, was forecast to win seven seats in the parliament, or Knesset, and announced it would back Netanyahu for prime minister. But the centrist Kulanu party, led by Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, refused to commit its four projected seats.
The mixed result gives a greater kingmaking role to smaller parties _ though the exit polls showed several might not reach the vote threshold to be seated in the Knesset, which would drastically affect the coalition calculus.
Yohanan Plesner, president of the nonpartisan Israel Democracy Institute, cautioned that official results _ as opposed to exit polls _ might yield a "dramatically different" result than the close contest the preliminary projections signaled, with one candidate or the other more able to decisively claim the mantle of victory.
If nothing else, some analysts said, the uncertainty helps dissipate an aura of invincibility surrounding the prime minister.
"Gantz proves there is an alternative to Netanyahu," Haaretz newspaper columnist and Netanyahu biographer Anshel Pfeffer wrote on Twitter.
The race was shadowed by a corruption indictment hanging over Netanyahu, who may seek to use a victory to shield himself legally.
If he manages to remain in office, the 69-year-old Netanyahu this summer would become the longest-serving prime minister since founding father David Ben-Gurion. This would be his fourth consecutive term and his fifth overall.
Israel's voter turnout is normally robust, but fell below 70 percent in this contest, a drop blamed in part on voter disillusionment with a campaign that did not turn on substantive issues.
Gantz, 59, is a political neophyte but is widely respected for his military background.
He and his wife, Revital, voted Tuesday in their hometown of Rosh Hayin, then visited the cemetery where Gantz's parents are buried. Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, voted in Jerusalem; late Monday night, he visited the Western Wall, tweeting a picture of himself there.
Election day is a national holiday in Israel, and families swarmed beaches, shopping malls and restaurants. About 6.3 million people were eligible to vote.
Netanyahu's camp sought to rally his backers with an election day video expressing fears that too many of his voters might sit out the balloting. But he was probably bolstered by a very low turnout among the country's Arab sector, which generally opposes him.
Netanyahu, whose image is mainly built around national security, made a last-ditch appeal to right-wing voters, pledging over the weekend to begin applying Israeli sovereignty to Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Such a move could upend decades of peace efforts and would be regarded as illegal by most of the international community.
The prime minister has also played up his close relationship with President Donald Trump, plastering the country with giant billboards showing the two leaders together. And the Trump administration's designation Monday of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization was seen by many as an election eve gift to the premier.
Netanyahu last month got a campaign boost from Washington when Trump announced the United States would recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau seized from Syria in 1967. That also flies in the face of a general international consensus, as did Trump's move of the U.S. Embassy last year from Tel Aviv to disputed Jerusalem.
