Jerusalem – Israelis are voting on Tuesday to choose the next party to lead the 21st Knesset in an election that pits incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against Benny Gantz, former army chief of staff, with 37 other parties in the running.

Polls are open from 7am (04:00 GMT) to 10pm (19:00 GMT) at 10,720 polling stations.

Israeli citizens aged 18 and over, including those living in illegal settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and West Bank are eligible to vote. Israeli law excludes expats currently abroad from voting.

The 4.8 million Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation in East Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza do not have voting rights.

According to the polls, Netanyahu of the right-wing Likud party and Gantz of the centrist Blue and White party are running in a close race for prime minister. The position is chosen by the Israeli president, on the recommendations of Knesset Members (MK).

The final poll published by Israel’s Channel 13 before the election showed the Likud and Blue and White in a dead heat with each gaining 28 seats.

The poll also predicted that Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc would win 66 Knesset seats with Israel’s centre-left parties winning 54, as reported by Israeli Haaretz.

On Thursday Israel’s Channel 12 released a poll in which respondents were asked who they would prefer to see as prime minister: 37 percent answered Netanyahu and 35 percent said Gantz.

Last minute plea

Asked who they believe would form a governing coalition, 58 percent of respondents answered Netanyahu.

However, Netanyahu has been urging voters to head to the polls in a last-minute plea, warning that Likud was trailing behind the Blue and White party, according to Hebrew media.

“People think that we’re going to win, so they’re not coming to vote,” Netanyahu reportedly said at a meeting late Monday night with MKs and Likud members.

“Wake them up everywhere and tell them to bring their family and friends and get out and vote. Our mission is to quickly close the gap as much as possible,” Netanyahu said, according to the Times of Israel.

Sixty-one of the 120-seat Knesset seats are needed to form the government. As no single party has ever won a majority of 61 seats on its own, coalition governments are the norm.

After the final votes are counted, President Reuven Rivlin decides which party leader has the best chance of forming a coalition government relying on recommendations from MKs. 

Netanyahu told settler leaders in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, that he did not think his Likud party be able to put together a bloc to have the 61 recommendations that would prompt the president to choose him to form a government. 

That’s in part because the Zehut party, led by Moshe Feiglin, said it would ally with whichever party won the most seats.  

“In a situation in which there is no bloc, then [Blue and White party heads Yair] Lapid and Gantz are the biggest parties. That is according to the polls in the media and that is according to our polling,” Netanyahu reportedly said according to Israel Hayom.

Undecided voters

Israeli newspaper Maariv reported a day before the election that half a million Israelis amounting to nine Knesset seats remain undecided as to who to vote for between the two frontrunners.

The election is largely seen as a referendum on Netanyahu who is mired in corruption charges.

Israel’s attorney general announced in February 2019 that he intends to indict Netanyahu for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three corruption cases.

Gantz formed the Blue and White party in February to unseat Netanyahu.

Akiva Eldar, a senior columnist for Al-Monitor told Al Jazeera that Gantz provides an appealing alternative for those who don’t want to vote for Netanyahu, but are not excited for voting for the left-wing Labor party either.

“This was a way to vote in between the two of them for something new, for something that may succeed,” Eldar said.

“They don’t believe that Labor has the power to get rid of Netanyahu and win the elections, while people believe Gantz can.

“Gantz is not corrupt. He’s managed to put together a nice group of people from different parties and it seems that he is a good manager to form [a party] in less than two months [from elections], to be able to bring together three former chiefs of staff and to convince Lapid to give up his ambition,” Eldar said.

Asasabad, Kunar Province, Afghanistan – The arrival of spring has turned the fields green in the northeastern Afghan province of Kunar, which shares a border with Pakistan. 

Bukharis, traditional Afghan heaters, have been switched off as the rapeseed blossoms. 

As well as picturesque landscapes, with spring comes a new fighting season in Afghanistan. Every year, around this time, the Taliban announce their offensive.

“It is not the announcement of the Taliban spring offensive that keeps us worried,” Nur Alam, an elderly man in Asadabad, told Al Jazeera. “This year, all our attention is on the peace talks”.

Since last February, US and Taliban representatives have held several rounds of talks in Doha, the Qatari capital where the group has an office, to set the terms of a possible peace deal, leading to hopes that the new fighting season may not even begin.

But according to Barnett Rubin, an expert with New York University’s Center for International Cooperation and a former adviser to the State Department and the United Nations,

“if an agreement on the troop withdrawal will not be reached and the Taliban will announce the spring offensive, it will be intense as ever.”

On April 7, US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad issued a statement before leaving Kabul where he underscored the need to “reduce violence across Afghanistan” in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, the streets are full of chatter about the peace talks, and what they might mean for unstable provinces like Kunar.

“We have been waiting for about 40 years for some security and prosperity,” said Haji Nazeer Ahmad Pasarly, who lives in Dangam, a district in Kunar’s east. “The talks have already had a strong impact on the Taliban, their fighting has certainly deescalated.” 

Others in Kunar share his sense of optimism.

The idea of reconciliation is integral to Afghan cultural society. Instruments like the Jirgas, a democratic form of assembly used by Pashtuns to resolve disputes and community issues, have set the terms of resolutions for centuries. 

The negotiations in Doha, many in Kunar believe, are simply a continuation of this tradition.

The three main tribes who control the region, Safi, Mamond and Shinwari, have negotiated with fighters since the Soviet invasion and past civil war.

“Three years ago, the Taliban did an offensive which kept civilians hiding in their home for five days,” said Alam, the elderly man. “Civilians were starving. The provincial government call us to find an agreement with the Taliban and stop the fight. And we did.”

There is hope that discussions in Doha and Washington will have similar outcomes.

“We are all Muslim,” said Alam. “Our only concern is that they (Taliban) should allow our women to be [doctors], technicians, or any other [professionals]. If they accept that, there will be no an obstacle to peace.”

In this rural, impoverished land, subjected to drone attacks and constant clashes between different groups, peace is a necessity.

According to locals, 80 percent of the province is under fighters’ control, leaving 20 percent is in the hand of the government.

Afghan forces have official control, but are surrounded by fighters.

On the highway that connects to Jalalabad then Kabul, there are checkpoints at about every kilometre.

“If peace really happens, and all the Taliban will join the government, ISIL has little future here,” said Alam. “But if the peace negotiation fails, a new season of anarchy will probably start.” 

Despite being a recent phenomenon, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS) has a presence in Kunar. 

Residents told Al Jazeera that some foreign ISIL fighters have built ties with the population, marrying local women, and said in valleys like Mazar, the group is making attempts at state-building, running courts and tax systems.

Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify these claims.

The valleys where ISIL reportedly has a strong presence, like Mazar and Dewagal, and in the mountainous areas of Narang, Watapur, Nurgal, and Sarkano, have typically low populations.

But, contrary to the Taliban, who usually rule alongside the government, ISIL has not allowed governmental facilities to run in their areas under their control.

“The [ISIL] has taken advantage of the conflict between the Taliban on one side of the government and the United State on the other, to find the areas where it can establish itself,” said Rubin. “If the war … ends, it will be much harder for the [ISIL].”

Some locals tend to agree.

“When [ISIL] arrived to the land, the nation decided we will not let them spread,” said Pasarly. “We are already suffering from a war, and this will cause clashes and further bloodshed. This is why in upper Kunar, the districts of Shigal, Shultan, Asmar, Ghazi Abad, Nari, Dangam, and Marawara stand side-by-side with the Taliban. 

“In the rest of Kunar, there are some [ISIL fighters], but they remain a minority. If peace happens, lower Kunar will not let them be there.”

There is further concern, however, because since ISIL established a footprint in eastern Afghanistan, hundreds of Taliban fighters have defected.

“It was because ISIL is getting more funds,” said Malik Abdul Wali Fazeli.

Afghans fear that if some Taliban fighters refuse to accept the peace talks, they might, too, join ISIL.

The Taliban controls more territory now compared with any other time since the September 11 attack, the event which led to the 2001 US-led invasion.

If a peace deal is struck, SIGAR recently said up to 60,000 Taliban fighters and their families could be reintegrated into Afghan society.

Thomas Ruttig, cofounder of Afghanistan Analysts Network, is sceptical about the effect talks will have on stemming the bloodshed. 

The logic of fighting and talking at the same time has been ingrained too deeply already, he said, adding that both sides assume they need to talk from a position of military strength. 

“Freelance splinter groups [could] emerge as additional actors when a decommissioning process follows a peace agreement,” he said. “[This is] not economically supported because the US [will] just walk away after a deal.” 

The Taliban, ISIL and other groups could deploy more forces in Kunar, and more broadly Afghanistan. 

Back in Kunar, Alam, the elderly Afghan, said: “Jihad started in Kunar, but we do not where it will end.”