Mansour Abbas

The budget will be funded from the 550 Plan budget, which was led by the previous government and is currently under the authority of Minister May Golan.

Eisenkot’s petition accused Smotrich of attempting to “spread hatred, lies, and mislead voters,” stating that “there is no place for lying, deception, and manipulation in the current election system.

Including an Arab party in the first government formed after October 7 would be a powerful statement about what kind of society Israel wants to become after one of its darkest chapters.

“I look at the political map. The alliance already underway between Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid will be judged by one question only: Does it enlarge the bloc for change?” Golan said.

According to Smotrich, while the massacre was a tragic and hard-to-digest event, the intentional aspect of a political partnership with an Arab party represents a greater danger in his view.

Members of the Netanyahu-led coalition and the opposition reacted to Bennett and Lapid's announcement that the two will form a joint list for the 2026 Knesset elections.

The official reportedly believed that "Netanyahu was looking for continued calm and quiet understandings, while a new government would be dragged into an operation in the Gaza Strip."

A new poll by ArPanel reveals strong backing among Israeli Arabs for a unified Joint List, with 82% in favor and a clear preference for new candidates in the upcoming Knesset election.

“Tens of thousands in Sakhnin are marching together for the safety of all of us,” Hadash-Tal chairperson MK Ayman Odeh said.

Blue and White released a series of videos described as “nightmare scenarios” that it claimed would occur if “a government controlled by extremists comes to power again.”