Israel's president Isaac Herzog is holding talks with party leaders to decide who should first try to form a government after last month's election produced no clear winner. He has urged every camp to help the country avoid another ballot.

Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition fell from 68 seats to 53 in the 120 seat Knesset. The Change bloc of Zionist parties led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot holds 48. That leaves parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel, with a record 19 seats between them, as the most plausible kingmakers. The Joint List has 11 and the more conservative Ra'am has eight.

Arab Israeli turnout more than doubled to about 80 percent, reshaping the arithmetic even though Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza had no vote. Joint List leader Yousef Jabareen has said his voters want change after years of sharper racism, crime and exclusion under the outgoing coalition, while admitting deep disagreements with Eisenkot. He has described the choice as one between bad and worse rather than between good and better.

In Israel's system the president, though largely ceremonial day to day, judges which candidate has the best first chance of building a stable majority. Arab majority parties have signalled they would back Eisenkot for the premiership from outside a cabinet, even as Eisenkot's bloc has historically been wary of formal partnership with them. Netanyahu's camp remains short of 61 seats and has no obvious route without unlikely defections.

The deadlock keeps markets, allies and local voters waiting. Whoever Herzog nominates will face a narrow path: satisfy enough partners to govern, blunt claims that the result was illegitimate, and show that a working coalition can be assembled without plunging Israel straight back into another campaign.