Likud slams Yesh Atid for its MKs’ interruption of meeting with Haredi lawmakers

By Sam Sokol 28 January 2026, 10:48 pm

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. 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"

L-R: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a 40 signatures debate, at the plenum hall of the Knesset, December 8, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90); Opposition Leader and head of the Yesh Atid party MK Yair Lapid leads a faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on December 1, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/ Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party condemns Opposition Leader Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, after several of the opposition party’s MKs entered the committee staff area outside of Likud lawmaker Boaz Bismuth’s office, apparently interrupting talks with representatives of the ultra-Orthodox parties.

“Likud strongly condemns the violent outburst and photographing of documents by members of Yesh Atid by the office of the chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, MK Boaz Bismuth,” a Likud spokesman says in a statement.

“The panic within Yesh Atid, following their crash in the polls to below the electoral threshold, is driving them out of control. Even for political provocations intended to impress the party chairman in hopes of securing a spot on the [party’s election] slate, there are red lines,” the statement adds.

Most polls show Yesh Atid losing seats but comfortably entering the Knesset in upcoming elections.

Video from the scene showed several MKs, including committee members Elazar Stern and Moshe Tur-Paz, arguing with Degel HaTorah MK Uri Maklev outside of Bismuth’s private office, adjacent to the committee chamber. In the video, Tur-Paz could be seen picking up and photographing a document from a desk.

Asked about the incident, Tur-Paz told The Times of Israel that he and his colleagues had come to the committee room “to tell the Haredim and Bismuth: you will not strike a deal behind the backs of those who serve. We will not allow it.”

Sharing a copy of the photograph he took, which showed a list of committee members, Tur-Paz said that he snapped the shot “in an unclassified area,” adding that he did not break in.