Following the previous elections in April, incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a governing coalition.

[1] On 30 May, the Knesset voted to dissolve itself and trigger new elections, in order to prevent Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz from being appointed Prime Minister-designate.

[3] Following the April 2019 elections, Likud leader and incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had until the end of 29 May to form a governing coalition, including a two-week extension granted by President Reuven Rivlin.

[4] Though the deadline passed without a coalition being formed and Rivlin would have been tasked with appointing a new Prime Minister-designate, presumed to be Blue and White party head Benny Gantz,[5] Netanyahu successfully pushed to dissolve the Knesset to avoid this.

[7] One sticking point between Netanyahu and Yisrael Beitenu leader Avigdor Lieberman was the passage of a draft law which is opposed by the Haredi parties in the coalition.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu's legal troubles overshadowed further possible coalition negotiations, with Blue and White refusing to work with him in the circumstances.

That night, and into the morning of 30 May, the Knesset passed second and third readings of the bill to dissolve itself and force a snap election with a vote of 74 in favour to 45 against.

[16] The following agreements were signed by parties prior to the election: The table below lists the parliamentary factions represented in the 21st Knesset.

The Likud (election symbol: מחל‎) was tied with Blue and White for the largest political party in the 21st Knesset, with 35 of the 120 seats.

It is the party of Israel's current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is seeking to gain more power to build a government after failing to do so following the April election.

The Ra'am, Hadash, and Ta'al factions announced on 27 July that the alliance would be re-established,[26] Balad decided to join the next day.

[29] United Torah Judaism (UTJ) (election symbol: ג‎) was the fourth largest political alliance in the 21st Knesset, with eight seats.

UTJ is an alliance of two Ashkenazi Haredi parties (Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah), and is mainly concerned with preserving funding and rights for their sector of the population.

Due to its collapse in the April election, Labor held its leadership primary on 2 July, which was won by Amir Peretz.

Due to his opposition to Netanyahu's Haredi coalition partners, Lieberman has declared that he will support only a unity government between Likud and Blue & White.

After long-winded negotiations between the two factions, URWP leader Rafi Peretz agreed on 28 July to give Ayelet Shaked the number one spot on the United Right list.

Part of the deal stipulated that the list would support Benjamin Netanyahu for the position of prime minister, despite resistance to this from the New Right.

[40] Otzma Yehudit (election symbol: כף‎) was part of the Union of Right-Wing Parties in the April elections, but left after URWP members would not resign to allow Itamar Ben-Gvir to become a Knesset member; in addition, Otzma was unwilling to leave Baruch Marzel and Ben-Zion Gopstein off the electoral slate, as demanded by Rafi Peretz.

[61][62] Facebook suspended a chatbot on Netanyahu's Facebook account for 24 hours on 12 September for "hate speech", after it said that "a dangerous left-wing government" would rely on Arabs "who want to destroy us all—women, children, and men—and enable a nuclear Iran that would wipe us out"; Netanyahu remarked that he didn't write the statement, blamed a campaign staffer for the wording, and that the problem with the bot was immediately fixed.

[63] On 25 September, the Central Election Commission revised its official vote count, giving Likud one extra seat at the cost of United Torah Judaism.

[68] On election night, Avigdor Lieberman of Yisrael Beiteinu called for a "broad liberal government" that includes both Blue and White and Likud, and reiterated that he did not want to form any majority with the Arab parties.

Benny Gantz claimed Prime ministership and Blue and White repeated that they would not form a government with Netanyahu, although they were open to one with Likud.

[69] Speaking for Blue and White, Gantz and Lapid both rejected Netanyahu's offer, saying Blue and White had won, and that Gantz had the right to lead a unity government committed to liberal policies on social issues, and thus refusing to discuss forming such a government with Netanyahu as long as right-wing religious parties were included.

[71] Lieberman likewise accused Netanyahu of "deception" by offering a unity government, but conditioning it on the inclusion of religious parties.

10 of them—with three Balad MKs dissenting—expressed their readiness to nominate Gantz if he meets "basic demands" on the peace process, the Arab community's interests, and the Jewish nation-state law.

[75] On 22 September 2019, the Joint List leader Ayman Odeh declared that the Joint List had agreed, by internal majority voting, to endorse Benny Gantz for prime minister, marking the first time an Arab-Israeli party had endorsed a Zionist for prime minister.