President Isaac Herzog on Sunday urged Israel’s party leaders to “stop climbing trees, and face the reality” of the election result, in an appeal recorded by the Times of Israel.

The parties opposed to Benjamin Netanyahu won 67 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, against 53 for the prime minister’s right-wing and ultra-Orthodox bloc, according to the paper’s tally. The Israeli journalist Gideon Levy criticized the opposition parties’ resistance to forming a government with the participation of Arab parties, according to Opera Mundi.