As Israelis went to the polls on Tuesday, October 27, newspapers across Israel, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon turned their front pages to the same question: what does this vote decide, and for whom? The picture they drew runs from a kibbutz still mourning its dead to polling stations set up far beyond Israel's borders.

A vote that breaks hearts - or a call to govern

The Times of Israel reported from Kibbutz Be'eri, where one in 10 residents was killed on October 7, 2023. From that vantage point, the paper warned that hearts and minds would be broken if Netanyahu retains power.

A Jerusalem Post commentator took the opposite tack, urging the country's politicians to form a government. "form a government, you can hate each other on your own time", the commentator wrote, arguing that Israel needed stability from a broad coalition of Zionists.

Haaretz: the Palestinians are the crux

Haaretz argued that the Palestinians are the real crux of the election. The paper pointed to 2 million displaced Gazans living in camps, and described a policy of "settler terror" confining Palestinians in the West Bank to ever smaller areas - a policy it said Netanyahu is ready to continue at the risk of sweeping international sanctions.

According to Haaretz, one opposition figure reads the international stakes the same way:

• •Centrist leader Gadi Eisenkot, the paper wrote, understands that the West expects a policy shift on the West Bank.

Polling stations from Arab towns to southern Lebanon

The Palestinian paper Al Quds reported that the Israeli supreme court refused an attempt to ban weapons inside polling stations in majority-Arab towns - a decision the paper said raised fears of armed right-wing groups intimidating voters.

Across the border, the Lebanese paper Al Akhbar covered the hundreds of fixed and mobile polling stations which have been set up in southern Lebanon, Gaza and Syria for Israeli soldiers to vote. The Lebanese paper Al-Diyar read those stations as a signal that there is no current intention to withdraw. "The occupier is voting for its own occupation", the paper wrote.

A Lebanese letter: finishing with 'Bibi'

L'Orient-Le Jour gave the day its most personal framing: a letter to an Israeli voter written by a Lebanese journalist, who said these elections will probably affect his life more than any in his own country.

For that writer, the vote comes down to a single question. "the election is essentially about one thing: finishing with "Bibi" in power, once and for all", the journalist wrote.

The next step, as every one of these papers had it, was the vote itself on October 27 - followed by the government-forming that the Jerusalem Post commentator urged, whoever wins.