With Israel's general election about a month away, political blocs supporting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have boosted their approval ratings to tie with the anti-Netanyahu bloc, polls show.

This shift is seen as the result of right-wing parties in the pro-Netanyahu camp—previously lagging behind the opposition and struggling to clear the threshold for parliament—finding a breakthrough by announcing a merger.

According to Israeli media on September 3, local time, a general election poll released the previous day by Channel 13 showed that both the pro-Netanyahu and anti-Netanyahu blocs secured 53 seats each, tying.

With both sides falling eight seats short of the 61-seat majority needed to form a government, they would be forced to join hands with Arab parties, which are projected to win 14 seats.

This marks a significant change compared to a poll by the same broadcaster just a week prior, where the opposition bloc led the pro-Netanyahu camp 57 seats to 48.

This change in approval ratings is primarily because two right-wing, pro-Netanyahu parties are now projected to enter parliament in this survey.

After the far-right Religious Zionist Party and Zehut—which were previously projected to fail to enter parliament—announced a merger, the unified party's projected seat count reached 6 seats, surpassing the minimum threshold (4 seats) required to enter the legislature.

Additionally, the People of Israel party, led by Ofer Winter, was also surveyed to win 4 seats, enabling it to enter parliament.

The ruling Likud Party, led by Prime Minister Netanyahu, also narrowed the gap with the opposition Yashar Party, led by Gadi Eizenkot, which remains in the lead.

In last week's poll, Yashar held 24 seats and Likud 19, but this week, Yashar led with 22 seats to Likud's 21, a margin of just one seat.

The opposition party B'Yachad, led by former Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, continued its downward trend in support, dropping from 13 seats to 12.

The poll, released ahead of the deadline for submitting candidate lists for each party on September 8, surveyed 940 people with a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.

(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)