Bus Driver Killed, Dozens Injured in Negev Collision with Tractor

Good Morning, Israel · Saturday, October 31, 2026 · 7:21

Good Morning, Israel · Episode 34

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1. Bus Driver Killed, Dozens Injured in Negev Collision with Tractor
2. Palestinian Woman Found Dismembered in Acre Apartment, Fiancé Suspected
3. Toddler Dies After Being Left in Hot Car in Rahat
4. Czech Diplomat Killed in Jerusalem Crash After Returning to Israel
5. Israel Election Results: Netanyahu Bloc Short of Majority, Arab Parties Gain
6. Israeli Election Results Force National Unity Government Talks

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Maya

Israel's election count is final, and Likud has grown to twenty-seven seats, but still nobody can govern alone.

Daniel

And the phrase everyone's now saying out loud is national unity government.

Maya

This is Good Morning, Israel from baba News. It's Saturday, October thirty-first. I'm Maya.

Daniel

And I'm Daniel.

Maya

All week we've followed this count, envelope by envelope. Now it's done. What actually moved?

Daniel

The headline numbers held. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc finished on fifty-three seats, and former I D F Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot's bloc on forty-eight.

Maya

And the Arab parties?

Daniel

A record nineteen. The new detail is Likud itself. It finished as the largest single party with twenty-seven seats.

Maya

Up from the twenty-five in Tuesday night's exit polls.

Daniel

Right. And turnout settled at seventy-seven point nine percent, a touch higher than the figure we gave you earlier in the week.

Maya

So, final, but not official?

Daniel

Exactly. The results still need official validation. Once that happens, President Isaac Herzog can begin consulting the parties on who gets the first try at a coalition.

Maya

Sixty-one is still the number, and nobody's anywhere near it.

Daniel

Which is why the conversation has shifted. Former Member of Knesset Zvi Hauser put it plainly. Neither Netanyahu's bloc nor his opponents has a majority, and that narrows everything.

Maya

Narrows it how?

Daniel

It limits which partners each side can realistically bring in. And according to Hauser, it also limits controversial reforms, because no one has the votes to push them through on their own.

Maya

So the math does the moderating.

Daniel

Pretty much. Hauser sees a broad coalition as possible, with figures like Eisenkot and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett around the table.

Maya

Has Israel done this before?

Daniel

It has. Hauser points to the unity government of nineteen eighty-four, when the two big camps ended up governing together.

Maya

Though the world looked a little different then.

Daniel

That's his other point. The strategic threats Israel faces today, with Iran at the top of the list, add real urgency to forming a stable government quickly.

Maya

Is anyone putting odds on this?

Daniel

One political analysis did. It rates a unity government that includes Netanyahu as the most likely outcome, at about sixty-five percent.

Maya

And without him?

Daniel

A coalition with the Haredi, the ultra-Orthodox, parties but without Netanyahu comes in at forty-five to fifty-five percent.

Maya

Those don't add up to a hundred.

Daniel

They're not meant to. Each scenario is judged on its own. A minority government relying on backing from the Arab parties is put at twenty to thirty percent.

Maya

And the option nobody wants?

Daniel

Repeat elections. If no coalition comes together, that analysis calls another vote highly probable, sixty-five to seventy-five percent.

Maya

So Israelis may want to keep their polling station directions handy.

Daniel

I wouldn't throw them out yet.

Maya

And the foreign funding investigation we told you about yesterday?

Daniel

The Shin Bet still has its one week deadline to report back. Nothing new on findings yet. But with the Arab parties holding nineteen seats, any minority scenario runs straight through that probe.

Maya

Now to the Negev, Israel's southern desert region, and a deadly crash on Friday.

Daniel

A bus carrying schoolgirls collided with a tractor on Highway twenty-five. The bus driver was killed.

Maya

And the passengers?

Daniel

Dozens were hurt. Two women are in serious condition, and fifteen others are being treated for minor injuries.

Maya

Some were trapped.

Daniel

Yes. Rescue teams had to extricate passengers from the wreck. The highway was closed for a time, and police are investigating the cause.

Maya

Staying with tragedy, in Jerusalem. A young diplomat from the Czech Republic.

Daniel

Klara Schneiderova, thirty years old. She was killed on Thursday when a minibus mounted the sidewalk and hit her near the Mahane Yehuda Market, Jerusalem's big open-air market.

Maya

She'd only just arrived.

Daniel

She had. She'd come to head the Czech Embassy's office in Jerusalem, and she had a personal connection to Israel going back to her childhood.

Maya

Which makes it even harder.

Daniel

It does. The Czech Embassy and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar both expressed deep sorrow and sent condolences to her family. Police are investigating the crash.

Maya

Now a murder case in Acre, the historic port city in northern Israel.

Daniel

A dismembered body was found in an apartment there. Palestinian sources identified her as Tamara Omran, twenty-one, from Nablus, a city in the West Bank.

Maya

And the suspect?

Daniel

Her fiancé is suspected of killing her and dismembering her body with an electric saw. Israeli police have arrested a suspect from Nablus.

Maya

Where does the case stand?

Daniel

Police are investigating, and her remains were taken to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute, Israel's national forensic medicine center.

Maya

One more painful story. Rahat, the largest Bedouin city in the Negev.

Daniel

A two-year-old boy, Yaman az Ziadna, died after being left in a locked car. Paramedics tried to resuscitate him, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Maya

What do authorities think happened?

Daniel

They suspect he was accidentally forgotten in the vehicle. It's under investigation.

Maya

The kind of story every parent dreads.

Daniel

It is.

Maya

To the economy, and a costly blow for Intel, one of the biggest foreign employers in Israel's tech sector.

Daniel

There was an explosion at Intel's factory in Kiryat Gat, a city in southern Israel. Two employees were killed and one was seriously injured.

Maya

Do they know the cause?

Daniel

It was likely a technical failure involving nitrogen trifluoride, a gas used in chip manufacturing.

Maya

And the cost to the company?

Daniel

Intel projects about six hundred million dollars in lost revenue over two quarters. It expects to resume production by the end of the week.

Maya

How did investors take it?

Daniel

Not well. Intel's forecast for the fourth quarter of twenty twenty-six also disappointed, and the stock fell.

Maya

And finally, a story that goes back to the day after October seventh.

Daniel

On October eighth, twenty twenty-three, an Egyptian police officer opened fire on Israeli tourists in Alexandria, Egypt, in a terror attack.

Maya

Who was killed?

Daniel

Three Israelis, Alon Shamli, Amnon Bezalel and Hagai Efrat, along with their Egyptian tour guide, Sayed Kamel al Khawalka.

Maya

And now there's a fifth victim.

Daniel

Alon Shamli's widow, Mor Shamli, has died after more than three years of psychological anguish.

Maya

Has the shooter faced justice?

Daniel

No. He hasn't been brought to trial. And relations between Israel and Egypt have soured since.

Maya

A grief that never really ended.

Daniel

No, it didn't.

Maya

So, the thing to watch from tomorrow, as the Israeli work week begins: whether the election results are officially validated, which starts the clock on President Herzog's consultations.

Daniel

Follow Good Morning, Israel so tomorrow's episode is waiting for you.

Maya

See you tomorrow morning.