BEN GURION AIRPORT, Israel — A day after the polls closed in Israel, Ben Gurion Airport was packed. The long lines for security were populated in part by Israeli expats who had returned to the Jewish state to vote, and were returning to their homes abroad. 

Some 67,000 Israelis were estimated to have flown in for the vote, making up more than a seat in the Knesset if they were to vote for the same party. 

All of the expats who spoke with Jewish Insider at the airport on Wednesday night, several of whom were unwilling to speak on the record, voted for the bloc led by former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, with most choosing the left-wing Democrats party. 

“Obviously I’m disappointed,” Rae said. “I’m hopeful it’s not the end. I do think that, in many ways, the coalition that we have today lost. … It’s clear the current government doesn’t have the same support they had before.” 

Eisenkot’s bloc received fewer votes than the bloc led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but, with neither side having won a majority of the seats in the Knesset, it remains unclear which, if any, could form a governing coalition. 

Rae, 45, was traveling alone back to the Bay Area. She said she “debated until the last minute” which party to vote for within the “change bloc.”

“Obviously I’m disappointed,” she said. “I’m hopeful it’s not the end. I do think that, in many ways, the coalition that we have today lost. … It’s clear the current government doesn’t have the same support they had before.” 

Asked if she would come back if Israel returns to elections in the coming months, Rae said it was unlikely, noting that flying from San Francisco is time-consuming and expensive. 

“I’m not as disappointed in the result as I am for the level of participants from the liberal camp,” she said, referring to relatively lackluster turnout in left-leaning areas compared to other voting blocs in Israel. 

“Almost 70,000 people came from all over the world to participate,” she said. That they would make the effort but Israelis who live in the country did not turn out to the polls “does not make sense,” she added. 

Uri, 40, is a musician who returned to Israel from Brooklyn, where he’s lived for 14 years, in part to see his brother, who planned to fly in from Germany, to vote. 

He wanted to “replace the government, if possible, which seems harder than we thought.”

“I didn’t expect much,” Uri added, but said he came anyway in part to see family and in part to participate in a “potentially historic thing.”

The outcome was “not great,” he said. “I hope they’ll figure something out.”

“I think we both felt that this election is very crucial,” Yaara, a mother of two who recently moved to San Francisco, said. “We were both in Israel when Oct. 7 happened, and we were there when the judicial revolution happened. We felt that this is a crucial election and we need the voice of the secular, liberal public to be heard.” 

The Eisenkot bloc is “more determined to try to form a coalition than Netanyahu is, so hopefully they’ll do something. That’s my hopeful side,” he said. 

Yaara, a mother of two who recently moved to San Francisco for her husband’s job, said that she and her husband flew in for 48 hours just to vote for the change bloc. 

“I think we both felt that this election is very crucial,” she said. “We were both in Israel when Oct. 7 happened, and we were there when the judicial revolution happened. We felt that this is a crucial election and we need the voice of the secular, liberal public to be heard.” 

Yaara said she wants to ensure “there will be a future for our kids, because at the end of the day, they’re Israeli.”

“After the last election we felt it’s like 50-50 and what matters is how many people come out to vote … Every vote matters. We even persuaded some people to come and vote,” she added. 

Yaara said she was disappointed and confused by the result. “This was not what we were hoping for.”