Sharon Sharabi, the brother of former hostage Eli Sharabi and slain hostage Yossi Sharabi, entered politics on Monday, joining Avigdor Liberman’s right-wing opposition party, Yisrael Beytenu.
The announcement that Sharabi would join Yisrael Beytenu coincided with reports that the party was in talks with Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party about a potential merger, as opposition parties assess their chances in this year’s elections, due to be held no later than October 27.
Sharabi first entered the public eye as a prominent advocate for the release of the hostages abducted to Gaza during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack. Among the 251 hostages snatched from dozens of communities across southern Israel were his brothers Eli and Yossi, who were abducted from their homes in Kibbutz Be’eri.
Yossi was killed in captivity in January 2024, likely as an inadvertent result of an Israeli airstrike, while Eli was released in February 2025. Upon his release, Eli discovered that his wife Lianne and their teen daughters, Noiya and Yahel, had been killed on October 7.
Sharabi “has emerged as one of the most prominent, responsible, and unifying voices in Israeli society,” Yisrael Beytenu said of his entry to the party ahead of elections. “Amidst his painful personal and family story, he worked for the return of the hostages, with sensitivity and determination — and touched the hearts of many Israelis from all corners of society.”
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Sharabi, who is religiously observant, said he was joining Yisrael Beytenu despite its staunchly secular character out of a “deep responsibility toward Israeli society as a whole.”
As a member of the Religious Zionist community and a resident of the West Bank settlement of Alfei Menashe, Sharabi said he would work to “strengthen Jewish settlement, security and solidarity in Israeli society.”
Sharon Sharabi, the brother of Hamas hostages Eli and the late Yossi Sharabi, attends a rally calling for the release of Israelis held by terrorists in Gaza, at “Hostage Square” in Tel Aviv, on the eve of Israel’s 76th independence day, May 13, 2024. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
Liberman, welcoming him to the party, said Sharabi brought experience in “civic leadership” through unity with him, and would represent “values of responsibility, mutual solidarity and strengthening Israeli society’s resilience.”
Noting his past support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, Sharabi painted his decision to join the party as a result of Israel’s shifting political ground, rather than a change in his own ideology.
Likud, he said, had abandoned its traditional “national, statesmanlike and security-focused” values.
“Today, ‘the Likud of the past’ is Yisrael Beytenu,” Sharabi said, calling Liberman “a true right-wing leader,” and the only one who didn’t buy into the pre-October 7 belief among the country’s leadership that Hamas was deterred.
While serving as defense minister under Netanyahu in 2016, Liberman drafted an 11-page document warning that Hamas planned to burst through the Gaza border, overrun communities in southern Israel, and take hostages.
The document was presented to Netanyahu and then-IDF chief of staff Eisenkot with a call to launch a preemptive attack on Hamas to thwart its plans.
No such action was ever taken, and excerpts from the document were published by Hebrew news outlets in the weeks following the October 7 massacre.
Liberman has since claimed that his push to assassinate Hamas leaders was repeatedly overruled by Netanyahu.
The hawkish Soviet-born leader resigned as defense minister in 2018 — bringing down Netanyahu’s government and inadvertently sparking a years-long political crisis — due to his opposition to a ceasefire reached in the wake of an unprecedentedly fierce two-day barrage of over 400 rockets fired by Hamas and other terror groups at Israel.
Liberman, Eisenkot said to contemplate merger
Even as Yisrael Beytenu took public steps to bolster its candidate list for the upcoming elections, reports on Monday said that Liberman was in talks with Eisenkot about merging their two parties into one slate.
If the reports are correct, the two parties would be following in the steps of former prime minister Naftali Bennett and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, who announced their joint “Together” slate last week, injecting fresh energy into the opposition.
But early polling suggests that despite appearing to be the largest single party — overtaking Netanyahu’s Likud — Together would still not give the anti-Netanyahu bloc enough seats to replace the current government.
In that vein, reported talks between Eisenkot and Liberman Beytenu mark one of the clearest signs yet of possible realignment within the opposition’s right flank.
MK Avigdor Liberman and MK Gadi Eisenkot at a plenum session at the assembly hall of the Knesset in Jerusalem, September 9, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Discussions are said to be at an early stage, with no details yet on leadership of a joint slate or seat allocation.
Neither party has publicly commented on the reports of a merger, but a source with knowledge of the talks told The Times of Israel that the two leaders “meet regularly and are always in contact.”
Yashar has been polling at roughly 15 seats, making it the second-largest opposition party after Together, which is polling at 26 seats. While Bennett and Lapid invited Eisenkot to join their slate after announcing it last week, he has so far ruled out such a move, suggesting that the union may struggle to draw votes away from the pro-Netanyahu right.
Polls suggest that even if Eisenkot were to join the alliance, it would not succeed in shifting the overall balance between blocs.
Meanwhile, a union between Yashar and Liberman’s right-wing Yisrael Beytenu — which currently holds six seats in the Knesset but has been consistently polling at around 10 — could yield a combined 25 seats, bringing it neck-and-neck with the Together slate and potentially drawing support from right-wing voters currently aligned with the coalition.
Women’s rights activist joins Golan’s Democrats
In addition to the political alliances, opposition parties are increasingly turning to candidates who, like Sharabi, have forged their public profiles outside politics in the wake of October 7.
Earlier this year, Danny Elgarat, the brother of murdered Hamas hostage Itzik Elgarat, and a prominent advocate on behalf of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, joined Yair Golan’s left-wing Democrats ahead of the party’s open primaries.
Retired IDF general Maj. Gen. (res.) Noam Tibon, who became known for rescuing his son journalist Amir Tibon, his daughter-in-law and their two young children from their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz while it was under attack, joined the centrist Yesh Atid party in November.
And on Monday, the Democrats announced that protest leader and women’s rights advocate Moran Zer Katzenstein had joined the faction.
Moran Zer Katzenstein (R) listens to Democrats leader Yair Golan at a press conference in Tel Aviv on May 4, 2026 (The Democrats)
Zer Katzenstein is best known as the founder of Bonot Alternativa or “building an alternative,” a woman-led protest movement that rose to prominence during the 2023 demonstrations against the government’s contentious judicial overhaul. The group drew particular attention for its “handmaid protests,” donning red robes and white caps dressed as characters from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale,” to protest violence against women and attacks on women’s rights.
A former Shin Bet officer and marketing executive at companies including Google and Playtika, Zer Katzenstein was inspired to form the group following the 2020 gang rape of a 16-year-old girl in Eilat.
Golan welcomed the move, saying Zer Katzenstein is joining the party “at a moment when the struggle for women’s equality is a struggle over Israel’s security and identity” and calling her “one of the most prominent voices” speaking out against increasing extremism.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.