Nearly three years after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack transformed Israel, some of the people whose lives were most directly changed by that day are now asking voters to send them to the Knesset.
In a wide-ranging report for The Media Line, Gabriel Colodro profiles soldiers, bereaved parents, hostage relatives, wounded reservists, and residents of attacked communities who have entered politics across Israel’s ideological spectrum. Their experiences differ sharply, as do their views, but Oct. 7 has become the defining event behind their decision to seek public office.
Amir Strugo, a reserve officer in the elite Maglan unit, drove south without waiting for orders and helped organize fighting in Sderot. After hundreds of reserve days, he concluded that the sense of civic responsibility he had long preached to young Israelis also required him to enter politics. He is now No. 13 on B’Yachad, the joint slate led by former Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.
Rafi Ben Shitrit’s route was very different. His only son, Staff Sgt. Shimon Alroy Ben Shitrit, was killed fighting at the Nahal Oz outpost. A former Likud activist and mayor of Beit She’an, Ben Shitrit helped establish the October Council, which is demanding a state commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding the attack. He is now second on Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beitenu slate.
Tzvika Mor entered politics through the hostage crisis. His son Eitan was abducted from the Nova festival and released in October 2025. Mor helped found the Tikva Forum, which opposed hostage agreements it believed would strengthen Hamas or endanger Israel’s long-term security. He is now fifth on the joint Religious Zionism-Zehut slate.
Two retired major generals, Yair Golan and Noam Tibon, share another striking Oct. 7 story: Both drove south on their own initiative to rescue Israelis under attack. Golan repeatedly entered the Nova festival area to evacuate survivors. Tibon and his wife, Gali, first rescued two Nova survivors near Mefalsim. Tibon then joined troops fighting toward Nahal Oz, helped battle gunmen after a Maglan force was ambushed, evacuated three wounded soldiers, and later fought alongside soldiers clearing the kibbutz before reaching his son Amir’s family after about 10 hours in their safe room. Golan now leads The Democrats, while Tibon is sixth on B’Yachad’s slate.
With Israelis voting on Oct. 27, these candidates are asking to move from witnesses and victims of national failure to participants in the institutions responsible for preventing another one. Colodro’s full article is worth reading for the personal stories, political divisions, and difficult choices behind that transition.