At demand of PM’s office, panel drops the word ‘massacre’ from title of Oct. 7 commemoration bill

By Ariela Karmel

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11 February 2026, 2:55 pm

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Ariela Karmel is a political correspondent at The Times of Israel. She previously reported for Calcalist and Haaretz. She holds an MA in Middle Eastern and African History from Tel Aviv University and a BA in Political Science from the University of British Columbia.

Illustrative: Houses destroyed when Hamas terrorists infiltrated Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7, seen on October 25, 2023. (Edi Israel/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office seeks to drop the word “massacre” from the title of a bill advancing through the Knesset to commemorate the events of October 7, 2023. A Knesset panel approves the motion, though the issue will be reevaluated.

Action was taken on the matter even before today’s discussion at the Knesset Education, Culture and Sports Committee. A draft of the bill distributed to committee members and guests at the start of the session already bore the title “Memory and Commemoration of the events of Simhat Torah,” with the word “massacre” slashed out.

During the discussion on the bill, Yoel Elbaz, a representative of the Prime Minister’s Office, says that in describing the Hamas onslaught in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 kidnapped, the office prefers to use a Hebrew word that literally means “events,” but has also been used in the past to mean “riots. ” The reason, he says, is that on October 7 “it was not only a massacre — there was also heroism.”

“Just as the 1929 riots were called that and not the ‘1929 massacre,'” he notes, referring to the 1929 Hebron massacre in which about 69 Jews were murdered by Arab rioters.

Elbaz adds: “I don’t know to what degree people will remember the name of the law — they will rather remember the activities carried out by the authorities, which will also preserve the memory of the massacre.”

Initially, acting committee chair Shas MK Yosef Taieb appears to reject the idea, saying that “there will be no whitewashing of the issue.”

“We all know today that there was a massacre. My concern is whether our children and grandchildren will know that,” he says.

Still, the committee ends up deciding to remove the word “massacre,” though Taieb says the issue will be revisited before a final vote.