B’Yachad, Yisrael Beytenu to unveil Knesset slates Sunday ahead of deadline

By Ariela Karmel

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2 September 2026, 7:40 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.

Naftali Bennett (left) and Avigdor Liberman meet in the Knesset on May 20, 2026. (Courtesy Together party)

Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad and Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu, two opposition parties, will both unveil their candidate lists for the October 27 election on Sunday, two days before the deadline for parties to submit their final electoral slates.

The announcement will be particularly significant for B’Yachad, the joint electoral alliance formed earlier this year between Bennett’s party and Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, as it will determine which members of the latter party — currently the Knesset’s largest opposition faction and second-biggest overall — receive realistic spots on a list that has declined in the polls in recent months.

According to Channel 12, the agreement forming B’Yachad allocated Bennett’s party four of every seven places on the joint slate, with Yesh Atid receiving three, amounting to 12 Yesh Atid candidates among the first 29 spots. Bennett heads the alliance, with Lapid in the No. 2 spot.

The party is currently polling at around 13 to 15 seats.

The shrinking number of realistic slots for Yesh Atid lawmakers has helped spark a steady exodus of MKs from the party, including Elazar Stern, who has since joined Gadi Eisenkot’s rival Yashar party; Yoav Segalovich, who is running second on a joint slate with Mansour Abbas’s Islamist Ra’am; and Mickey Levy and Meir Cohen, who have announced they will not seek reelection.

The departures also come as Eisenkot has increasingly consolidated his position as the leading opposition candidate, with Yashar topping recent polls at around 24-26 seats.

Yisrael Beytenu, meanwhile, enters Sunday’s slate unveiling expecting to grow its current seven-seat Knesset delegation, with recent surveys generally projecting the party to win around 10 seats.

Like the majority of Israeli parties, neither Yesh Atid, Bennett’s party, nor Yisrael Beytenu holds open primaries to determine their Knesset slates, with candidates instead selected through the parties’ internal mechanisms and leadership.

Parties have until September 8 to submit their final candidate lists for the election.