Israeli President Isaac Herzog accepted the certified results of the 27 October parliamentary election and opened consultations on whom to task with forming a government, after Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc won 53 seats and Gadi Eisenkot's 48 — short of the 61 needed to govern. Netanyahu and allies make unsubstantiated fraud claims, which the elections commission says it found no evidence for, while Arab-led parties' record gains could push Eisenkot past a majority, and Herzog urged compromise to avoid a new election.