Blue and White’s leader, Benny Gantz, a former military chief of staff and Mr. Netanyahu’s main rival to lead the country, lives on a quiet road near a small, modern mall in this part of the city. And the eastern districts are now rapidly expanding with even newer developments of shiny apartment blocks popular with upwardly mobile young families from the Tel Aviv area.

“It’s as if they were two separate towns,” said Masha Sherman, 36, a software engineer who works for a company that collects election data. She calls them “Israel” and “Yemen.”

After the two inconclusive elections, Ms. Sherman, like many voters on both sides of the lines in Rosh Haayin, and in the rest of the country, said the only way out of the morass was for the two major parties to join forces in a national unity government.

“I want a moderate government, without extremists, without incitement and if possible without corruption,” said Ms. Sherman, a resident of new Rosh Haayin. “I’m always for unity, and not only in politics.”

Both Mr. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest serving prime minister, and Mr. Gantz, a relative political neophyte, say they, too, want a unity government.