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Free intercity public transportation is available across Israel on Tuesday, Election Day for the 26th Knesset, with the benefit extending to all passengers, not just eligible voters, according to Walla. The service is funded by the Central Elections Committee.

Free travel began at 8 p.m. on Monday and will continue until public transportation services conclude Tuesday night.

The benefit applies to about 660 intercity bus routes longer than 15 kilometers, up from 600 routes during the 2022 elections, as well as all Israel Railways lines.

However, city buses, light rail services, the Metronit bus rapid transit system, and Haifa’s Carmelit underground railway will continue to charge regular fares.

Passengers can check whether a specific intercity bus route is included in the arrangement by calling the Transportation Ministry’s information hotline at *8787.

How can passengers travel for free?

Intercity buses: Passengers can board eligible buses free of charge without presenting identification, obtaining a ticket, or validating a Rav-Kav public transportation card.

Israel Railways: Passengers must obtain a special paper ticket from station ticket counters or ticket machines. To avoid unnecessary charges, they should not use tickets or passes loaded onto their Rav-Kav cards or public transportation apps.

Additional trains on Jerusalem-Tel Aviv route

Due to anticipated demand, Israel Railways will run three trains per hour in each direction between Jerusalem’s Yitzhak Navon Station and Tel Aviv from noon until 8 p.m. Tuesday, up from the usual two trains per hour.

Some of the additional services will begin and end at Tel Aviv’s HaHagana Station.

In addition, police have restricted the number of passengers traveling to and from Jerusalem. Passengers are therefore required to obtain a personal travel voucher in advance for their selected train.

Due to expected congestion, railway staff will enforce the voucher requirement. Vouchers can be obtained free of charge through the Israel Railways website.

Will travel to Eilat also be free?

Different eligibility requirements apply to passengers traveling to and from Eilat.

Free travel on these routes is subject to an eligibility check based on the passenger’s registered residential address and advance registration through Egged’s information center at *2800.

Rail passenger numbers could break 2022 election record

During the previous elections for the 25th Knesset on November 1, 2022, Israel Railways recorded a roughly 33% increase in passenger numbers, rising from 249,146 on a typical weekday to 331,706 on Election Day.

That record is expected to be broken this year.

The free transportation initiative is estimated to cost NIS 3.5 million and will be funded by the Central Elections Committee through the Transportation Ministry.

Passengers are advised to check updated schedules and service changes through the Israel Railways website, its official app, the *5770 information hotline, or the railway’s official WhatsApp channel.

Israelis head to the polls today to elect the country’s next Knesset, with parties competing for votes and a chance to shape the country’s future.

But what does each party stand for, who leads it, and what are its key policies and priorities?

The Jerusalem Post has prepared a series of explainers breaking down the platforms, leaders, and main positions of all the main parties running in the election.

Explore our guides below to learn what each party stands for before casting your vote.

What does Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar stand for?

Led by former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, Yashar is a centrist party focused on national security, government reform, and replacing Benjamin Netanyahu. Yashar is part of the opposition bloc.

Ballot letters: דרך | Explore Yashar’s policies and platform

What does Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud stand for?

Led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Likud is a right-wing party that emphasizes national security, Jewish nationalism, and a strong stance against Palestinian statehood. The Likud heads the right-wing bloc and Netanyahu’s sitting coalition.

Ballot letters: מחל | Explore Likud’s policies and platform

What does Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad stand for?

Led by former prime minister Naftali Bennett, B’Yachad is a centrist party focused on government reform, economic growth, and the enlistment of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) men into the IDF. B’Yachad is part of the opposition bloc.

Ballot letters: רק | Explore B’Yachad’s policies and platform

What does Yair Golan’s Democrats stand for?

Led by Yair Golan, the Democrats is a left-wing, Zionist party that emphasizes liberal democracy, civil rights, education reform, and a greater equality in military service. The Democrats is part of the opposition bloc.

Ballot letters: אמת | Explore the Democrats’ policies and platform

What does Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu stand for?

Led by Avigdor Liberman, Yisrael Beytenu is a right-wing, secular nationalist party focused on national security, a tougher stance against Hamas, and reducing the influence of religious parties in government. Yisrael Beytenu is part of the opposition bloc.

Ballot letter: ל | Explore Yisrael Beytenu’s policies and platform

What does Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit stand for?

Led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Otzma Yehudit is a far-right nationalist party that advocates a hardline approach to security threats, expanded Jewish settlement, and tougher law enforcement. Otzma Yehudit is part of the Netanyahu bloc and the sitting coalition.

Ballot letter: ב | Explore Otzma Yehudit’s policies and platform

What do the Joint List and Ra’am stand for?

The Joint List and Ra’am represent different strands of Arab Israeli politics. The Joint List is generally left-wing and emphasizes equality, civil rights, and Palestinian national rights, while Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am takes a more pragmatic approach focused on tackling crime, securing funding, and improving living conditions in Arab communities.

Ballot letters: ודם (Joint List); עמ (Ra’am) | Explore the Joint List and Ra’am’s policies and platform

What do Shas and United Torah Judaism stand for?

Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ) are ultra-Orthodox (haredi) parties that prioritize protecting the status of religious institutions in Israel and maintaining broad exemptions from IDF service for yeshiva students.

Shas primarily represents Sephardi and Mizrahi haredi and religious Jews, while UTJ represents Ashkenazi haredi communities. Both parties are part of the Netanyahu bloc and were part of the sitting coalition.

Ballot letters: שס (Shas); ג (UTJ) | Explore Shas and United Torah Judaism’s policies and platform

What does Bezalel Smotrich’s RZP-Zehut stand for?

Led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Zehut leader Moshe Feiglin, Religious Zionist Party-Zehut is a far-right, religious-nationalist party that supports expanding West Bank settlements, applying Israeli sovereignty over the territory, and advancing judicial reform. RZP is part of the Netanyahu bloc and the sitting coalition.

Ballot letter: ט | Explore Religious Zionist Party’s policies and platform

What about the parties hovering above – or below – the electoral threshold?

Several parties are fighting to secure enough votes to enter the Knesset, with the 3.25% electoral threshold determining which lists win parliamentary representation. For these parties, even a small shift in voter support could determine whether they enter the next Knesset or leave their supporters without representation.

Recent polls have placed the People of Israel party and the Reservists-Economic Party near the threshold, with their standings varying between surveys. Their results could have a significant impact on the balance between the political blocs.

Led by former IDF general Ofer Winter, People of Israel is a right-wing party that supports Benjamin Netanyahu for prime minister and calls for new leadership outside the political establishment.

It makes haredi enlistment a condition for joining a government, rejects blanket exemptions for yeshiva students, and advocates a hardline security policy, including voluntary emigration from Gaza.

The Reservists-Economic Party, led by former minister Yoaz Hendel and economist Yaron Zelekha, combines a right-leaning Zionist and security agenda with an emphasis on economic reform. The party says it will join only a Zionist government and demands that a universal conscription law be passed before a government is formed.

Led by Moti Leitner, the Haredi Public Party seeks to offer an alternative to the established ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism. It supports broader haredi military or national service, core-curriculum studies including math and English, and greater accountability from haredi political leadership.

Ballot letters: ך (People of Israel); די (Reservists-Economic Party); זך (Haredi Public) | Explore these parties’ policies and platforms

This article was produced by J.–The Jewish News of Northern California in partnership with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Ayelet Frank was one of the first people to check in on Sunday, Oct. 25, for a nonstop flight from San Francisco to Tel Aviv. A resident of Redwood City, California, since she left Israel in 1984, she is flying back for one reason: to vote in the Oct. 27 election.

It’s the first time in her more than 40 years abroad that she is going back to cast a ballot.

Election about Israel’s very existence, Frank says

“This election is unique. It’s very different than any other,” she told J. “It’s about Israel’s very existence. This election is between the destruction of the country, or building it up in a positive way.”

A native of Kibbutz Ein Harod in the Jezreel Valley, she is spending only two days in Israel before returning to California. It’s a long way to travel just to vote, but, she said, “It’s that important.” 

Frank was one of 271 passengers on El Al flight 48, which landed in Israel less than 24 hours before the polls open. It was the first nonstop flight from San Francisco to Israel since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack. Many on board were part of what one organizing group estimates is a wave of 67,000 Israelis abroad flying home for an election widely seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a tight race, the Israel Democracy Institute said that many voters could swing nearly two Knesset seats.

Those travelers are spending thousands of dollars for the chance to cast their ballots in what many are calling the most consequential election in Israel’s history. 

The mood in the boarding area at the San Francisco International Airport was buoyant. Lots of people seemed to know one another and were running up to hug friends and chat excitedly. There were families with children and plenty of babies in strollers and carriers. There were a smattering of black kippahs as well as one Hasidic family. There were also Israeli residents returning home from vacation in the Bay Area. But judging from the conversations as well as from people interviewed by J., most passengers were Israeli expats flying back to vote. 

Capitola resident Udi Pardo left Israel in 1983, a year before Frank. Most of his family still lives in Israel and he visits twice a year. But for him, this was his first time flying home for an election. 

“I never tried to go and vote before because I don’t live there,” he said. “But now it’s a national emergency. I can’t not go.”

“Israel is on the verge of an abyss,” he continued, saying that he has not yet decided between Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar and Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad — both center-right parties opposed to Netanyahu’s government. “We need to bring back sanity to Israel and to Israeli politics and reestablish liberal democracy because it’s about to disappear.”

First election since October 7 Massacre

The Oct. 27 election is the first since the Hamas attack and the war that followed. The stakes are so high, pundits say, that Israelis living abroad are flying home to vote in what appear to be unprecedented numbers. Israel does not allow absentee voting, except for diplomats and other state employees posted abroad, so expats who want to cast a ballot must do so in person.

The 67,000 estimate comes from Fly & Vote, a project of the U.S.-based America Israel Democracy Coalition to help expats navigate the logistics of participating in the election. The group cautioned that the figure is based on a voluntary August survey and its own registration data, not a count of arrivals. No comparable data exists for previous elections.

Israel’s Likud-led government has tried to impede Fly & Vote’s efforts with legal action, which was blocked in October by Israel’s Supreme Court. The government reportedly also considered closing or slowing down traffic at Ben Gurion International Airport in the days before the election. Analysts say this is because Netanyahu and his allies believe that many, if not most, of those responding to Fly & Vote’s initiative will vote against the current government. 

Indeed, that seemed to be true of most of the expats on this El Al flight from San Francisco. Every person interviewed spoke about the “need for change” in Israel’s government, and those who declared their support for candidates mentioned either Eisenkot or leaders of other anti-Netanyahu parties. The Silicon Valley-based Israeli expat group UnXeptable, which emerged to protest Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul and has become a major anti-Netanyahu voice globally, had a large presence on the flight, with about a dozen key members sporting light blue T-shirts emblazoned with the date of the election and the Hebrew words for “Flight for Change.” 

They were handing out shirts to any other passengers who would take them, some of whom put them on right away. Local TV stations showed up for an UnXeptable press conference held at the check-in counter.

Roni Bar-Niv of Sunnyvale is one of several people interviewed who is spending just a few days in Israel, in her case enough time to vote, turn around and fly back to the Hebrew-language school she runs near her Silicon Valley home.

In the 26 years since she left Givatayim, a suburb of Tel Aviv, Bar-Niv said, she visits Israel four or five times a year but she, too, has never flown back to vote until now.

“I thought I didn’t need to vote because I don’t live there,” she said. But everything changed, she added, after Oct. 7. “If we pay taxes — we have an apartment there — and if we send money for the war effort, and if we have children there — my daughter made aliyah five years ago — we need to go and vote,” she said. “The direction our country is going is very bad, for Israelis living there and for us also.”

Berkeley resident Rivka Amado left Jerusalem 22 years ago. A retired ethics professor and Ladino singer, she said it’s the duty of Israeli expats to show up.

“This election is critical, and it’s important for every Israeli to vote, whether you live here or there,” she said. 

The surge in emigration since Oct. 7 has also swelled the pool of Israelis abroad. Some 82,800 Israelis left the country in 2024, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, up from 55,000 in 2023. More than 69,000 left in 2025, the Times of Israel reported, the second straight year that emigration outpaced immigration.

Gilad Kariv, an opposition lawmaker from the Democrats party who chairs the Knesset’s Diaspora Affairs Committee, has warned of a “tsunami of emigration,” according to the Jerusalem Post. He has called it a “strategic threat to the future of Israel” tied to the government’s conduct. 

J Street regional director Shimrit Braun Kamin (left) hugs Galit Lipsitz Goldental near the El Al counter at San Francisco International Airport, Oct. 25, 2026. (Aaron Levy-Wolins/J. Staff/Report for America)

Experts point to the war in Gaza and opposition to Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul as driving forces, suggesting that many recent emigrants are critical of the government.

Thirty-seven parties are on the Oct. 27 ballot, but only about a dozen are expected to clear the 3.25% electoral threshold needed to win Knesset seats. With Netanyahu’s Likud party polling neck-and-neck with his main opponent, Eisenkot’s Yashar party — the final pre-election polls show Yashar winning 22 to 23 seats to Likud’s 19 to 21 — every seat matters. 

Neither party is projected to win a clear majority, meaning either one will have to negotiate intensely to form a governing coalition.

That’s why these expats have ponied up the dough, packed their bags and jumped on planes. 

Eyal, a tech designer in his 40s who has been living in Mountain View since 2004, declined to give his last name because of his former job in the Israeli military. This, too, is his first trip home to vote. 

In general, he said that he agrees with Israelis who believe expats should not have a voice in elections that no longer affect them personally. 

“But in this particular election, I think a lot of Israelis want us to come and vote,” he said. “I know my parents do.”

Shlomi from Sunnyvale, who left Israel more than 15 years ago and also declined to give his last name, is worried that if there is not a new government, Israel’s brain drain will accelerate.

“We are in the final moments,” he said, likening Israel’s political situation to a soccer game. “If the government doesn’t change, I think a lot of good people who contribute to the future of the country will leave Israel.”

Shlomi is also worried that Israel will lose its partnership with the United States. 

“It’s not about right or left,” he said, declining to say how he’ll vote. “It’s about dignity, about taking responsibility, about leaders that actually make decisions for the people rather than their personal benefit.”

Iddo Tal, a Jerusalem native, has lived in Palo Alto for 15 years, where he is a tech entrepreneur and teaches fundraising to startup founders around the world. He has launched “five start-ups and two kids,” he said, joking that “the kids have been a huge success.” 

Unlike most of those interviewed, he has traveled back to vote before. He made the trip to visit his parents but timed it around an election.

“They always say every election is historic, and they’re always right,” he said.

Tal believes expats should vote, saying it keeps Israelis at home and abroad closely connected. “There’s something very exciting about making the Israeli diaspora part of Israel [proper], by coming back to fight, to raise money, to vote,” Tal said.

Hadar Aviram teaches law at UC Law San Francisco while studying to become a rabbi through Hebrew Union College. Born in Israel, she grew up “all over the world” and landed in San Francisco in 2001 for grad school. She wore one of the blue UnXeptable shirts and has joined some of the group’s protests.

“Let’s start with taking accountability for the Oct. 7 massacre and the ensuing war,” she said. “And long before that, we were all hostages to this hateful, bigoted, corrupt government.… I’m flying to release us from him, and him from us.”

She bristles at people who don’t understand why Israelis like her feel so strongly about this election.

“If some of those ignorant folks ask what Zionism is, I invite them to look around at all the people here who have packed their bags and emptied their savings accounts because they want to save their country,” she said, waving at the crowded boarding area. “When you love something very, very, very much, you are willing to go to great lengths to save it.”

“This time I will not vote for Likud, which has abandoned its original values and whose leaders have inflicted a deep national rift on the country,” long-time Likud party member, cousin to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and professor at Bar-Ilan University Nathan Netanyahu said in a letter published on X/Twitter on Tuesday evening.

Nathan accused the Israeli government of four sins in the “moral-public sphere” that signal it is “no longer worthy of the public’s trust.”

“The repeated attacks by the prime minister and his ministers on the judicial system and the gatekeepers, the controversial appointments and the campaign of incitement and slander against the coalition’s critics, alongside the serious suspicions concerning the members of the cabinet — all of these have corrupted the governing culture, undermined the public’s trust in the government, and deepened the rift in Israeli society to unprecedented proportions,” he said in the letter. 

אחרי שנים רבות של חברות בליכוד, החלטתי שלא להצביע למפלגה בבחירות מחר. בטור המצורף, ״על שלושה פשעי ממשלת ישראל — ועל ארבעה לא אבחרם!״, בהשראת נבואתו המפורסמת של עמוס, אמנה ארבעה פשעים של הממשלה במישור המוסרי־ציבורי, המחייבים שינוי בהנהגת המדינה. https://t.co/UaiXAigk8L

— Prof. Nathan Netanyahu (@NathanNetanyahu) October 26, 2026

Nathan asked readers of his letter to consider a question: “Are those responsible for such a devastating national rift even capable of repairing it?”

The four crimes were the Judicial Reform “coup d’etat,” October 7 shattering Israel’s perception of security, failure to support its citizens, and the refusal to bear responsibility.

Complete loss of national cohesion

“The government was warned repeatedly,” Nathan said, “but despite the warnings, it continued its predatory attack on the elements of the democratic regime, even in the midst of the war.”

“Under the ‘legal reform,’ it sought to concentrate almost unlimited power in its hands, empty the control mechanisms of their content, and pave the way for a regime with dictatorial characteristics.”

He explained that, in an April 2023 speech, he “warned of the danger to the independence of the judicial system, in the spirit of the values I absorbed at home with my mother, Supreme Court Justice Shoshana Netanyahu.”

The Judicial Reform debates completely divided the country: “Society was torn from within, national cohesion was shattered, and senior security officials warned of the security danger,” Nathan wrote.

Israeli perceptions of safety, security destroyed

The October 7 massacre occurred during this government’s four-year term, Nathan noted, citing it as one of the reasons he would no longer vote Likud.

“On October 7, the concept of containing Hamas, which the prime minister had led for years, with the aim of buying peace through funds from Qatar and economic concessions, was shattered.”

Not only was this idea that the prime minister was containing Hamas shattered, Nathan says, but “In reality, under the auspices of this policy, the terrorist organization grew stronger and prepared for the murderous attack.”

The Hamas attack was a significant failure by the current Israeli government, Nathan argued. “Some 1,200 civilians and security forces were murdered and killed in the worst disaster to hit Israel since its founding. Towns were occupied, families were massacred in their homes, civilians were burned alive, women were sexually assaulted, and 251 people were kidnapped to Gaza.”

“The war that broke out also exacted a terrible price of hundreds of dead and bereaved families and tens of thousands of wounded in body and mind.”

“Israel has since been mired in an ongoing campaign on several fronts, with no clear end in sight,” he wrote. “Its international standing has declined to an abysmal low, and its propaganda has failed in the battle for global public opinion.”

Government didn’t do enough to support its citizens, Nathan argues

Nathan also accused the government of “violating the covenant between the state and its citizens.”

Its “continued incompetence in education, health, transportation, and the struggle over the cost of living was exposed even more clearly after the disaster [Oct. 7], when citizens and volunteers filled the governmental vacuum.”

Citizens supported each other; they “assisted evacuees and victims, the families of the kidnapped set up a struggle headquarters, and communities in the encirclement and the north are struggling for their rehabilitation,” Nathan said, arguing that ordinary people were doing what the government should have done by default.

He also addressed the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft exemption under this “sin.”

“Reservists have repeatedly left their families and sources of livelihood, and many have paid with their bodies and lives. On the other hand, the government continues to promote exemption from service for the ultra-Orthodox and allocate huge sums to appease the ultra-Orthodox parties, for reasons of coalition survival, while grossly trampling on the principle of equality of burden.”

Refusal to bear responsibility

Nathan also focuses on another key issue for voters in the Israeli election: whether or not a state commission of inquiry into October 7 should be established.

“With our Prime Minister, the responsibility always lies with someone else,” he argued. “The most serious expression of this is the refusal to establish a national commission of inquiry.”

“Why, despite widespread public support, was such a committee not established more than three years after the massacre? Is it possible that the greatest national disaster of all does not require the establishment of a state investigation committee? Government responsibility is not conditional on criminal guilt, but it does require accountability to the public,” he argued.

“I will not vote for Likud under its current leadership, and I have even announced the immediate termination of my membership in the movement. I will consider renewing it when a leadership that is not tainted by these shortcomings is elected.”

Referencing a quote from the prophet Amos, Nathan concluded his letter by saying, “For three crimes of the Israeli government — and for four I will not choose them!”