JERUSALEM _ Israeli voters went to the polls Tuesday in an election largely seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
All 120 seats in the Knesset, or parliament, were up for grabs after a hard-fought race that has been shadowed by a corruption indictment hanging over the prime minister, who has dominated Israeli politics for more than a decade.
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.
Netanyahu's main rival was former military chief of staff Benny Gantz, who is leading a new alliance called Blue and White, after the colors of the Israeli flag. Gantz is a political neophyte but is widely respected for his military background, and some opinion polls have given him an edge.
Polls were to remain open until 10 p.m. local time, with exit poll results expected to be available when the balloting ends and preliminary official vote tallies early Wednesday. But it will take time to see how the results translate into ability to form a governing coalition, a task that might be slightly easier for Netanyahu.
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.
In one potential positive omen for the prime minister, early turnout appeared to be low among the country's Arab sector, which mostly opposes him. Majority-Arab political parties estimated a turnout of only 20 percent by midafternoon.
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 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.
