Former Hadash MK Issam Makhoul dies at 72

Former Israeli lawmaker and Hadash chairman Issam Makhoul, who served as a Member of Knesset from 1999 until 2006, has died at the age of 72.

He is survived by his wife, Suad, and their two children.

Makhoul was a member of the far-left Hadash party, and, following a merger, of the Hadash-Ta’al party. He belonged to the communist Maki faction of the majority-Arab party.

While in the Knesset, Makhoul was a vocal opponent of Israel’s alleged nuclear weapons program — the existence of which Israel has never publicly acknowledged — and proposed a bill to shut down the Dimona nuclear reactor.

His time in the Knesset wasn’t without controversy. In 2002, he was barred from three plenum sessions after comparing then-prime minister Ariel Sharon to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

He was the target of a failed assassination attempt in 2003, when anti-Arab extremists planted a homemade bomb under his wife’s car, which exploded when the car’s ignition was turned on. Neither Issam nor Suad were harmed in the blast.

In 2005, Alexander Rabinovitch and Eliran Golan were convicted of trying to murder Arab public officials, including Makhoul.

Even after leaving the Knesset, Makhoul remained active in Hadash.

At an event hosted by the party in October, he denounced US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the Gaza war as the “continuation of the war of annihilation,” given that it does not include a concrete path to Palestinian statehood.

עיסאם מח׳ול, יו"ר חד"ש: תוכנית טרמפ "לשלום" היא המשך של מלחמת ההשמדה ושערי הגיהנום בכלים דיפלטמטיים, כל עוד לא מובילה לסיום הכיבוש והקמת מדינה פלסטינית שבמסגרתה עזה, הגדה ומזרח ירושלים הן חלקים במדינה פלסטינית אחת. pic.twitter.com/H8CMoOlfIk

— חד״ש Hadash (@Hadash_org) October 25, 2025

“This morning we received the difficult news of the death of a leader, a fighter, a gifted writer, a thinker and a doer, a member of Knesset, and a friend,” the Hadash party says in a statement mourning Makhoul’s passing. “May his memory be a revolution.”