Israel Prez receives official election results

Neil Handel, chairman of the Central Elections Committee (CEC) that oversees the elections, handed the president the final results during a ceremony at the President's residence here in the national capital.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rightwing Likud party gained 36 seats while its main rival, the centrist Blue and White party headed by Israel's former military chief Benny Gantz, garnered 33 seats.

The Joint List, a unity of Arab factions, gained 15 seats, the highest number of seats the party ever won.Netanyahu's bloc, a pro-settler party and two Jewish ultra-Orthodox parties, gained 58 seats together, meaning the long-time leader does not have enough votes to form a coalition government in Israel's 120-seat parliament.

Rivlin urged leaders of all parties to form "a stable government" after two rounds of votes in 2019 ended with a deadlock.He reiterated his outline for a unity government, which includes a rotation scheme in which Netanyahu and Gantz serve as prime ministers.

On Sunday, the President will begin a series of consultations with heads of the factions after which he will announce which leader will he task with forming the next government.Netanyahu's corruption trial is scheduled to begin on March 17. Netanyahu, indicted with bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three separate cases, is the first incumbent prime minister to stand to trial in the history of Israel.