Just hours before polling booths open across Israel, the country’s election front runners launched frantic campaigns to rally support – incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu issued a string of controversial promises and warnings that the right was in danger, while chief rival ex-army chief Benny Gantz called for “historic need” for change.

Most of the ten final polls before the elections gave Lt. General Gantz his elections partner Yair Lapid and their centrist alliance the Blue and White Party a narrow lead over Mr Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party in the hotly contested race.

But all concluded that in the end a right bloc will win a resounding victory over the left, signalling a Likud-led ruling alliance was more likely to form the next government.

Under pressure, Mr Netanyahu, who is looking to secure a fourth-consecutive term in office and the title of longest-serving Israeli prime minister, controversially vowed to annex the occupied West Bank sparking uproar.

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At a packed rally in Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market on Monday he warned crowds that his party’s decade-hold on power, and so the right, was in the jeopardy.

His critics, including chief rival Gantz, accused him of re-launching a “gevalt” campaign, a Yiddish exclamation for alarm, by scaring people to the polling booths. During the last elections in 2015 he was accused of inciting racism when he deployed similar warning tactics by saying the right-wing bloc was is "in danger" as "Arab voters were heading to the polls in droves”.

“Some of our people are complacent, they believe the media which is trying to put them to sleep. They’re saying ‘all is fine, this is in our pocket,’ but it isn’t,” Mr Netanyahu told the packed market, where supporters replied with boos.

“We must close the gap against Lapid and Gantz. It's late but not too late!” He later tweeted.

Lt. Gen Gantz meanwhile, said on Monday that his party was “one foot away from victory” but warned the polls were too close. He said his party still needed a few "tens of thousands more votes" to make that victory happen.

“There is a historic need to change the government,” he was quoted by Israeli paper Haaretz as saying.

"[Netanyahu] launched a huge 'oy gevalt' campaign to stay in power despite the indictments, but we will not give him that.”

Mr Netanyahu also appeared to take credit for a decision by Donald Trump on Monday to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terror organisation, drumming up further support.

Tweeting initially in Hebrew, Mr Netanyahu thanked Mr Trump for “responding to" his request to designate the elite Iranian force.

“We will continue to act together in any way against the Iranian regime that threatens the state of Israel, the United States and the peace of the world,” he wrote.

The news came just two weeks after Mr Trump controversially recognised Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights in a signing ceremony that Mr Netanyahu attended in Washington.

The declaration, denounced by critics as “electioneering”, marked an eleventh-hour turn around in Mr Netanyahu’s popularity which had been blighted by the country’s attorney-general announcement he planned to indict the embattled leader in three corruption cases.

Retired Israeli general Benny Gantz, one of the leaders of the Blue and White political alliance, takes a picture with his supporters a day ahead of the electoral polls (JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images)

Mr Netanyahu, who denies all the charges, is set to face a pre-trial hearing after the elections before the final decision is declared. If he is indicted, Netanyahu will be the first serving Israeli prime minister to stand trial while in office.

Polling booths will open at 8am on Tuesday morning across the country with exit polls expected at 10pm local time.

Once the winner is announced they will start negotiations with Israel’s president to form the new government.