MK Yair Lapid, number two on the "Together" party list, on Friday addressed the challenge of forming a government following the election results.
"Now comes the really hard part: trying to form a government," he wrote in a social media post. "We owe it to those who stood in line on Tuesday, to those who flew in especially, to those who stood outside polling stations for eight hours and convinced people to vote."
"It will be difficult. I have no guarantees. It's not an exact science, or even mechanics. It's a complicated political process. But we have one thing we didn't have on Monday morning: an overwhelming Israeli majority that has declared this is what it wants."
In fact, the anti-Netanyahu bloc won just 48 Knesset seats, while the current coalition bloc holds 53 Knesset seats - exactly the opposite of what most polls were projecting.
With the exception of Democrats chair MK Yair Golan, all of the anti-Netanyahu bloc has promised not to rely on the Arab parties to form a government, effectively leaving the bloc a full 13 seats short of a majority, while the coalition partners are just eight seats short of a majority.