Israel heads to the polls with Netanyahu's political fate and the country's rightward shift at the centre of a landmark election

A poll published on Friday gives Itamar Ben-Gvir's party nine seats and Yair Golan's Democrats, successor to the once-mighty Labor party, just eight. Israelis vote on 27 October. More than 500,000 have come of voting age since 2022. Three-quarters of first-time Jewish voters call themselves right or centre-right, so the next Knesset is expected to lurch rightward whoever wins.

At a rally this week, Ben-Gvir boasted of his 1998 conviction over 'Rabbi Kahane was right' stickers.

Arab Israeli voters are mobilising in a bid to eject Benjamin Netanyahu from power.

Netanyahu says re-election would keep his Trump partnership alive, praising the president's 'wicked sense of humor'.