Israelis voted on Tuesday in a general election dominated by national-security concerns [AFP]
Published On 11 Feb 200911 Feb 2009
After December's military offensive in Gaza, public sentiment apparently hardened against peace concessions and bolstered rightist parties [AFP]
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Tzipi Livni, Israel's foreign minister and head of the current coalition leader Kadima, is struggling to keep her party in power [Reuters]
Benyamin Netanyahu of the conservative Likud party has consistently led in opinion polls, although by a shrinking margin [AFP]
Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territory of West Bank have been a bastion of support for Likud, which has vowed to work towards peace from a "position of strength" [AFP]
Some Palestinian-Israeli groups called for a boycott of the election, but others argued they had a duty to vote and have their voices heard [AFP]
Voting was marred by a scuffle in the Palestinian-Israeli city of Umm Al-Fahm when an ultra-conservative Israeli activist sought to oversee polling there [AFP]
