Benjamin Netanyahu’s position in a bid to remain Israeli Prime Minister has weakened after an ultra-Orthodox Jewish party withheld support for any nominee ‌and two Arab-led parties endorsed his main opponent.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog was due to meet Netanyahu and his chief political rival Gadi Eisenkot to decide which of the two men to ‌pick to form a government after holding talks with smaller parties.

He has until Wednesday to decide.

Israel’s October 27 election ended in deadlock with neither Netanyahu nor Eisenkot, a former military chief, securing a clear path to a majority in parliament.

That has set up a tough task for Herzog, whose mostly ceremonial role comes with the post-election responsibility of picking a candidate he believes has the best chance to break the deadlock in a deeply divided country.

Eisenkot is expected to be given the first shot after the strong backing he received in parliament.

Netanyahu remains PM in a caretaker government until a new coalition ‌is formed, or through ‌another election which must be ⁠held if no candidate succeeds.

Although Netanyahu outperformed expectations in the vote and his own Likud Party won the most ​seats, his nationalist-religious coalition lost its governing majority.

In a setback for Netanyahu on Thursday (local time), United Torah Judaism, one of two major parties representing ultra-Orthodox Jewish voters and a longstanding Netanyahu coalition ally, declined to recommend any candidate to form a government.

And while Eisenkot, like Netanyahu, has so far ruled out forming a government with Israel’s two Arab-led parties, both factions endorsed Eisenkot on Thursday, giving him backing from a comfortable majority of MPs.

A total of 67 of the 120 members of the Knesset endorsed Eisenkot to begin coalition talks after the Arab-dominated Joint List also threw its support behind him. He would likely need the backing of both the Joint List and the separate Ra’am party.

Herzog will meet separately with Netanyahu’s and Eisenkot’s factions at his residence in ⁠Jerusalem on Thursday, wrapping up party meetings he started on Wednesday after the announcement of ‌official election results.

Herzog has ​called on parties to do their utmost to avert another round of elections.

“Any reasonable person need only look at the security and diplomatic challenges before us, at the changing ​region around us, and ‌remember the issues tearing us apart from within, to understand that an immense responsibility rests upon us,” he said.

He met smaller factions on Wednesday and plans ​more meetings with parties in ascending order by size, culminating with Eisenkot’s Yashar and Netanyahu’s Likud.

Likud won the most seats of any single party with 27 in the 120-seat Knesset but Netanyahu’s wider religious-nationalist coalition garnered only 53 in total.

That was still better than Eisenkot’s anti-Netanyahu coalition spanning four centre-left to right-wing Jewish-led parties, which ​won ​just 48 seats despite pre-election polls pointing to a close race.

Two parties ​representing Israel’s Arab minority won an unprecedented 19 seats.