Triumphant in this week's election, Benjamin Netanyahu faces a new test forming a government with an ultranationalist party whose sudden rise has many at home and abroad alarmed at the potential implications for Israeli democracy.
Israel's longest-serving prime minister and dominant political figure, Netanyahu, 73, is on course for a comeback a little over a year after losing an election to an unlikely coalition of right-wing, liberal and Arab parties in 2021.
This time, however, he has had to share the limelight with far-right leader Itamar Ben-Gvir, 46, who appears likely to take a senior role in government after the Religious Zionism bloc he co-heads became the third-largest in parliament with 14 seats.