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JERUSALEM, March 3-- With the majority of the votes counted in Israel's parliamentary elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party has won the largest number of seats but is still short of securing a majority in parliament. Official results are expected to be released in the coming days. If they match the exit polls, Netanyahu will be one or two seats away from forming a majority coalition in the 120-seat parliament. Netanyahu's main rival, Benny Gantz, leader of Blue and White party, failed to secure a majority either, as his party lost about four seats to Likud. A political newcomer who managed to garner significant support, it seems this time that Gantz will have difficulty in bouncing back from such a blow. "It's clear that Gantz and his center-left bloc has lost the election, but it is unclear whether Netanyahu really wins a victory," said Gideon Rahat, a professor from the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. "We are back to April 2019 (the first elections) with more or less the same results in terms of the party blocs," Rahat explained. But Netanyahu managed to strengthen Likud by increasing the number of the party's seats to at least 36 this time. Exit polls showed the right-wing bloc led by the Likud has secured 59 seats, two short of the majority of the parliament. "It's very clear to see the Israelis are tilted to the right and it's most likely that we're going to have a right-wing government," Ran Bar-Yoshafat, vice director of the Kohelet Policy Forum, told Xinhua. | 
