Around half a million first-time voters will be eligible to cast their ballots later this year — a record number for this group — having grown up during the COVID19 pandemic and over 30 months of war.  Experts say they could determine the makeup of 17 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, and that they are predominantly right-wing and more religious than older voters. Those aged 29 and below will account for around 22% of the roll, according to Central Bureau of Statistics population figures.

So what they think matters.

With Israel now at war for two and a half years, the cost of living only rising, and an election campaign underway, The Times of Israel traveled by train from Nahariya near the border with Lebanon in the north to Beersheba in the south to solicit young people’s views.

Interviewees were asked the same set of questions, ranging from the societal and personal impacts of war, media consumption, leadership, and social divisions to their views on where they and the country would be in five years.

The young people were approached at random, although with an eye to representing different sectors of society. Excerpts from their responses are presented below.

Several people declined to be interviewed. Others agreed, but would not be photographed.

Most were suspicious and critical of the mainstream media. They worried about social fissures and were unsure how they would vote later this year.

Nahariya to Kiryat Motzkin

The journey began in Nahariya, near the Lebanese border. The route passes the northern coast towards Kiryat Motzkin, one of Haifa’s satellite cities, with its dense residential and commercial development.

Zinnat Abu Hassan, traveling from Nahariya to Tel Aviv, April 15, 2026. (Sue Surkes/Times of Israel)

Zinnat Abu Hassan, 27, an Arab Israeli from the mixed Jewish-Arab city of Ma’alot Tarshiha in the Western Galilee, was traveling to Tel Aviv for a cosmetics course.

Zinnat explained that the war has delayed her plans to open a cosmetics clinic and to take an Israeli conversion exam for a geriatric nursing qualification she earned in Jordan. She said Jewish Israelis are keeping their distance from Arab Israelis since the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre in southern Israel.

View of the northern Israeli city of Ma’alot-Tarshiha, on February 7, 2019. (Courtesy Hadas Parush/Flash90)

“Wherever you go, if they know you’re Arab, or if you speak Arabic, people are frightened that you want to kill them or something,” she said.

‘I think about leaving the country all the time. I don’t feel that I can advance here’

“I think about leaving the country all the time,” she added. “I don’t feel that I can advance here. There’s war all the time. Prices are always going up. And [in the Arab sector, where gang warfare is rife], there’s always someone from a mafia who wants to take money from you.” Zinnat asked that her face not be shown.

Kiryat Motzkin to Binyamina

From Kiryat Motzkin, the train traveled past the oil refineries and Haifa’s port before the views melted into coastal dunes, with occasional peeks at the sea to the west. To the east rose the imposing Carmel mountain range, framed by agricultural fields lush and green.

Uriah Dar, on his way home to Petah Tikva after a solo hike in northern Israel, April 15, 2026. (Sue Surkes/Times of Israel)

Towards the back of the train, Uriah Dar, 19, was traveling home to Petah Tikva after completing 50 kilometers (31 miles) of a 70-kilometer (43-mile) solo hike from Nahariya to the Sea of Galilee, cut short by missile attacks.

A member of the national religious community, Dar was on vacation from the pre-military academy he attends in the West Bank settlement of Eli. He hopes to join an elite IDF commando unit.

Asked if he thinks 30 months of war have changed Israeli society, Dar said the Hamas-led slaughter of 1,200 people on October 7 has made those who previously believed in peace with the Palestinians aware of their folly.

Illustrative: Security forces and firefighters work to control a wildfire sparked by a rocket attack from Lebanon near kibbutz Yesud Hamaala in the Galilee, October 26, 2024. (Ayal Margolin/Flash90)

He said that those who live in areas such as Samaria — the biblical name for the northern West Bank — truly understand the Palestinians, as opposed to the people who complain about settlements, “have money and lack for nothing,” and live in far-off places like Tel Aviv.

He opposes the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of terror, saying Palestinians glorify death.

‘The best thing is to take their land. It worked best in history

“From what I learned, the best thing is to take their land. It worked best in history,” he said.

Binyamina to Netanya

After a change of trains at Binyamina, a pleasant town known for two wineries, the journey continued along the Mediterranean Coast. In rapid succession, one could observe sandy terrain, agricultural fields, orchards, eucalyptus woods, and small villages, as well as the massive chimneys of the Hadera power station and the modern architecture of high-tech Herzliya. The approach to Netanya brought a cityscape of tall apartment blocks.

Tal, 31, was traveling from Binyamina to his tech job in Tel Aviv. He asked not to be photographed and for his last name to be withheld.

The railway line (right) passes the rocky Carmel range in northern Israel, January 3, 2025. (Yossi Zamir/FLASH90)

Originally from Hatzor Haglilit in northern Israel, Tal has been living in Zichron Yaakov, about half an hour’s drive south of Haifa, for a year. He is married and has a two-month-old son.

Tal was not called up for reserve duty after October 7, having been injured and declared disabled during the 2014 Operation Protective Edge campaign in Gaza. His younger brother was in the middle of his mandatory military service on October 7, and served in the Gaza border community of Kibbutz Be’eri, which was devastated by the Hamas attack, and in Gaza. He has also completed reserve duty.

View of a main street in Zichron Yaakov, northern Israel, April 10, 2007. (Nati Shohat/Flash90)

“That’s our country,” he said. “I did it 10 years before. I know my son will be a soldier too. We didn’t choose to be a people that fight all the time, but that’s the reality.”

Tal said he watches less TV news than before.

‘I know my son will be a soldier too. We didn’t choose to be a people that fight all the time’

“They stretch things out, there’s lots of repetition and less news, and commentators who aren’t relevant,” he said, adding that the army and its technology have changed since these commentators last performed any military service.

Netanya to Tel Aviv University

After Netanya, now a large city with two railway stations, the train again traveled through verdant fields briefly touched by spring’s transient green abundance, before approaching the sprawling urban metropolis of Tel Aviv. The university was the first of four inner-city stops.

Lior Binyamin, 22, from Netanya, was on her way to Tel Aviv University, where she is a first-year student of politics and economics.

View of the Tel Aviv University campus, May 15, 2025. (Yossi Aloni/Flash90)

The university has just resumed classes after a pause due to the war in Iran. Lior said she thinks Israeli society overcame its divisions immediately after October 7, but has been “falling apart again” over the past year.

The TV news channels 12 and 13, which are seen as being less supportive of the government, “have gone back to saying how bad things are here,” she said. All the main channels “filter the reality,” she said. “Nobody reports the facts objectively.”

TV commentators have made mistaken predictions about the outcome of the Iran war, Binyamin added.

“I try not to watch the news, and more to read push notifications from Channel 12, to get the essence,” she said.

Tel Aviv Savidor to Mazkeret Batya

The Times of Israel changed trains again at Tel Aviv’s Savidor station. The platform for southbound trains was almost empty, bar a few soldiers. From the modern towers of Israel’s central business district, the route passed through Lod and Ramle, into wide open fields of wheat, some of it already harvested.

Angel Andino, 24, born in Israel to a Filipino mother and a Congolese father, was on his way to the Maccabi Kiryat Gat Football Club, where he plays.

Soccer player Angel Andino on his way to the southern city of Kiryat Gat, April 15, 2026. (Sue Surkes/Times of Israel).

An Israeli citizen and a Christian, Andino served in the IDF and lives with his mother in a Jewish neighborhood of Haifa. The change that he has noticed since October 7 is that Jews living around him have become more religious.

“There are more kippot, there’s more Sabbath observance,” he noted.

Andino’s life and that of his friends revolve around soccer, leaving no time for politics and little for news, he said. He admires US President Donald Trump for fighting alongside Israel against Iran, but disagrees with the US-Iran ceasefire.

“We haven’t finished what we started,” he said. “As Israelis, we’re good at talking, but less good at action.”

‘As Israelis, we’re good at talking, but less good at action’

Asked which subject he’d tackle first if he were elected prime minister, he said the economy.

“Life is too expensive. How can I buy an apartment without an enormous salary?” he asked. He said he won’t bring a partner into his life until he has solidified his financial situation.

Kiryat Malachi to Beersheba

After Kiryat Malachi in the northern Negev, the soil turned sandier, and the train entered Israel’s southern breadbasket. Bedouin grazed their sheep on spring’s green tufts. Beersheba, the unofficial capital of the Negev region and this reporter’s final destination, started modestly before rising into a metropolis, with its university, large hospital, tall commercial buildings, and residential neighborhoods. The desert’s yellow wastes loomed nearby.

Approaching the Beersheba Central railway station. (Shabatashtiot, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

Avishag, 22, was traveling to her army base. She is estranged from her ultra-Orthodox family and lives a secular life, although she still believes in a higher power.

She rues her former Haredi Orthodox life, describing teachers who warned that she would give birth to an armless child if she wore short-sleeved blouses, or a deaf one if she listened to anything other than religious music. It is the Haredi community that is deaf, she said, describing the sector’s general refusal to serve in the IDF as “despicable.”

‘Nobody has the privilege of not knowing what’s going on’

That said, she continued, “Most of the army is religious. I see so many kippot,” with many being worn by Haredim who do choose to serve.

Like Lior, Avishag hates what she sees as divisions sown by TV news channels, and is a consumer of news on social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, saying, “Nobody has the privilege of not knowing what’s going on.”

Dreaming of a family and space for horses, she said the combination of a poor education system, high cost of living, and crowded living conditions may push her to live abroad.

“I’m a very optimistic person, but I’m also realistic,” she said. “I want to believe it will be good here. Maybe someone else will come into power and the cost of living will come down, and environmental quality and education will improve. But if we continue like this, in another five years, I won’t be the only one going overseas.”