October 7 Survivors and Bereaved Families Take Centre Stage in Israel's Election

AFP and France 24 reported Friday, September 18, 2026 that Israelis transformed by the October 7 attack — former hostages, bereaved parents and people who fought back that day — are running as candidates across at least nine party lists ahead of the October 27 election, the first since the attack. Hostage-family spokesperson Sharon Sharabi, whose two brothers were taken captive on October 7 (one died in Hamas captivity, one released in February 2025), is running on Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beytenu list, saying he wants to 'ensure that Hamas is defeated and can never rise again' and to 'come to the aid of grieving families' he says the government has neglected. Talik Gvili, mother of a police officer killed in the attack, was placed ninth on Prime Minister Netanyahu's Likud list. Challenger Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff now seen as Netanyahu's most formidable rival, recruited Shira Shapira, whose son Aner Shapira was killed at the Nova festival after throwing back grenades hurled by Hamas fighters to protect others sheltering with him. A Bennett-Lapid centrist list has added retired Maj. Gen. Noam Tibon, who became a national hero for rallying dispersed soldiers to fight through Kibbutz Nahal Oz, where his son's family was under attack, on October 7. The report described the October 7 candidates as sharply divided between supporters of Netanyahu's continued military pressure on Hamas and those who hold him responsible for the security failure that allowed the attack.