JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Ashtiyeh said on Wednesday his government did not count on the results of Israeli elections as long as Israel was not ready to end the occupation in the West Bank, while Jordan and Germany rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statements on annexing the Jordan Valley to Israeli sovereignty.

"We want those in the helm of Israel to stand up and tell the world that they are ready to end the occupation, and President Mahmoud Abbas will find a partner," Ashtiyeh said at a leadership conference in Bethlehem.

"The competition between two candidates has no program to end the occupation."

Israelis voted yesterday in a highly contested legislative election between Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been in power for 13 years, and former army chief of staff Benny Gantz, five months after their first inconclusive confrontation.

According to Ashtayeh, the Palestinian Authority will take a number of measures if Israeli policy continues as it is now, without clarifying the nature of these measures.

"Unfortunately, Israeli society is getting more right-wing," said Ashtiyeh, whose remarks were posted on the official website of the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Ashtiyeh expressed his wishes for the joint Arab list, which is running in the Israeli elections, in «to achieve the desired results for our people and our people at home».

The Palestinian-Israeli relationship has been stagnant since 2014.

Netanyahu is in a battle for political survival in an election that has seen fierce competition yesterday, which could end his 10-year dominance in politics.

Opinion polls show a rivalry between the centrist White Blue Party, led by former army chief of staff Benny Gantz, and Netanyahu's right-wing Likud, but it also suggests that the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party could play the role of kingmaker in coalition talks.

When he cast his ballot in occupied Jerusalem yesterday, Netanyahu said: "The elections are very close. "I call on all citizens of Israel to go out to vote."

Soon after, Gantz voted in the city of Rosh Haayin and wished everyone good luck.

The law prohibits the two men from campaigning through the mainstream media, so they turned to social media. In a live broadcast on Twitter, Netanyahu mobilized his electoral base and urged her to vote for him. Gantz posted a video of himself speaking from the window of his car with a woman in a car.

The campaigns of the two main parties in Israel's second parliamentary election, within five months, point to minor differences between them on many important issues, such as regional conflict against Iran, relations with the Palestinians, the United States and the economy.

Netanyahu announced his intention to annex the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank, where the Palestinians seek to establish their state. But a blue-white party also said it would work to strengthen Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank, with the Jordan Valley considering Israel's "eastern security border".

In this context, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, yesterday, in Berlin, with Jordan's King Abdullah II, the developments in the Arab region.

The German chancellor, during the joint press conference after the talks, rejected Netanyahu's announcement on the annexation of land from the occupied West Bank to Israel, if he wins the elections. Germany believes that a two-state solution is the best way to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

For his part, the King of Jordan reiterated his country's rejection of the Israeli Prime Minister's remarks about the Jordan Valley, saying that he was in touch with leaders of friendly countries to pressure Israel not to implement its plans, which would destroy the two-state solution.

He said the plan announced by Netanyahu would have catastrophic consequences for any attempt to advance the two-state solution.

Opinion polls show a rivalry between the center-right White Blue party, led by former army chief of staff Benny Gantz, and the right-wing Likud party under Netanyahu.

Shtayyeh asserted that the Palestinian Authority will take a number of measures if Israeli policy continues as it is now, without clarifying the nature of these measures.