ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared set for a record-breaking fifth term today with 97 per cent of votes counted.

The final total is unlikely to be known until today as the Central Elections Committee is currently counting so-called “double envelopes:” the votes of soldiers, hospital patients, diplomats posted abroad, election officials and women in shelters, which is always done last.

Results were neck and neck, with Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party and principal challenger Benny Gantz’s Blue & White coalition each winning 35 seats.

However, Likud is better placed to form a coalition government, with the bloc of right-wing parties ahead with 65 seats to 55 for a bloc to the left.

Blue & White’s policies on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine fall far short of Palestinian aspirations — it rejects the UN-backed right of return for Palestinian refugees and claims any peace deal would rest on no territorial concessions to Palestine and a continuing right of Israel to send troops onto Palestinian territory.

But it pledged to amend the notorious Nation-State Law to accommodate the rights of minorities and has an economic programme to the left of Likud’s, including increased health and education spending, as well as term limits for politicians and a ban on indicted politicians continuing to serve in the Knesset.

Mr Gantz struck an optimistic note, saying: “Although the skies look dark, the result is not final yet.

“Our voters wanted hope and we gave it to them.”

But Mr Netanyahu declared it a “night of tremendous victory” following a hard-right campaign that involved him promising to annex all illegal settlements in the West Bank — depriving Palestine of most of its territory on a formal basis — and benefited from shifts in US policy to recognise Jerusalem as capital of Israel and Israeli sovereignty over Syria’s Golan Heights territory.

“I want to make it clear it will be a right-wing government, but I intend to be the prime minister of all Israeli citizens, right or left, Jews and non-Jews alike,” Mr Netanyahu claimed.

The message was a sharp contrast from his campaign theme in which he accused Mr Gantz of conspiring with Arab parties to topple him.