Former center-right minister Yoaz Hendel forms new ‘Reservists’ party

Faction aims to be a bridge between left and right, pledges not to engage in political boycotts; platform calls for universal conscription, commission of inquiry into October 7

By Sam Sokol

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18 September 2025, 5:08 pm Edit

Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Former communications minister Yoaz Hendel announced on Thursday the registration of a new political party he is calling HaMiluimnikim (“The Reservists”), which will run in the next Knesset election.

In a statement, the new party said it comprises “reservists, families of reservists, wounded IDF soldiers, bereaved families and civilian volunteers.”

Hendel has not ruled out a partnership with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, and the statement said the party “will deal with principles and not political boycotts.” Such boycotts, the statement added, were “among the factors that led us to October 7.”

But in a thinly veiled reference to the prime minister, the statement also insisted that those responsible for the failures of October 7, 2023, “should go home and those who took responsibility that day, and since, should take control of the centers of power and lead the country.”

After he dropped out of the last Knesset race in 2022, when he was allied with former justice minister Ayelet Shaked, the center-right politician said that he preferred to pay “a political price” rather than lend his support to a narrow government led by Netanyahu.

The new party’s platform calls for a “Zionist government,” “service for all” and the “establishment of a committee of inquiry” to investigate the October 7 attack, a step the prime minister has resisted. “The reservists are coming to force the rehabilitation of the political system,” the party continued.

Zionist Spirit leaders Yoaz Hendel and Ayelet Shaked hold a press conference in Ramat Gan on August 21, 2022. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Hendel, a battalion commander in the IDF reserves and a critic of the current government who was previously affiliated with Likud, entered politics in 2019 as a member of Benny Gantz’s center-right Blue and White party. He bounced between a few factions in subsequent years and served in the cabinet between 2020 and 2022.

After leaving politics, Hendel established a movement also called HaMiluimnikim, aimed at promoting universal military enlistment and harsh penalties for draft evasion.

According to a poll published this week by The Times of Israel’s sister site Zman Yisrael, if elections were held today, HaMiluimnikim would receive six of the Knesset’s 120 seats, positioning him as a potential key component of a government led by the current opposition.

Hendel’s announcement came two days after former Blue and White deputy leader Gadi Eisenkot announced the formation of his own political party, “Yashar! With Eisenkot,” although Eisenkot reportedly still hopes to unite with other opposition factions ahead of the next election.

Then-MK Gadi Eisenkot holds a press conference after announcing his resignation from the Knesset and his departure from the National Unity party, in Tel Aviv, July 1, 2025. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)

Since leaving Blue and White, Eisenkot has held multiple meetings with other leading opposition voices, including Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett, and has agreed to attend a joint meeting of the anti-Netanyahu so-called “change bloc” this weekend “aimed at shaping the basic guidelines of the next government.”

The next election is currently scheduled for October 2026 but could be moved up.

Asked if the new Reservists party was also in touch with the various opposition parties, Yoav Adumi, a deputy battalion commander in the reserves and one of the party’s founders, told The Times of Israel: “Yoaz is an experienced politician who knows everyone and everyone knows him, so you can assume everyone talks to us, right and left.”

“That said, we don’t take part in the right-wing bloc or left-wing bloc meetings because we are between the blocs,” he stated, adding that unlike the anti-Netanyahu bloc, the “right-of-center party” is “not boycotting anyone, including Netanyahu.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a press conference at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, September 16, 2025.(Marc Israel Sellem/POOL)

According to Adumi, the party’s “only goal is to be the force in the middle that will… ensure that there will be real reform, regardless of who leads” the government. He said it was willing to sit with anybody, including far-right Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben Gvir and the Islamist party United Arab List and its chairman Mansour Abbas, if they agree to support the party’s agenda.

Regarding the IDF draft, Adumi said the party supports universal conscription, including for Arabs, and that citizens’ right to vote should be contingent on them taking part in some form of national service.

As for the coalition’s efforts to weaken the power of the judiciary, he insisted that while some reform is necessary, it cannot be imposed on the country and must “be done by broad consensus.”