From the Liveblog of
Monday, June 16, 2025
Pared-down Knesset convenes in conference room for wartime session
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"
In its first session since opening of hostilities with Iran, the Knesset convenes in a sunken conference room in the Parliament building in Jerusalem rather than in its usual chambers. Lawmakers debate a scaled-back legislative agenda in a sparsely attended meeting in a largely empty room.
Opening the session, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana praises Israelis for their “extraordinary national resilience” in working to ensure their country’s existence “for generations to come.”
While other opposition motions of no-confidence were dropped from the agenda following Friday’s attack on Iran and Tehran’s retaliatory missile strikes, the Arab Hadash-Ta’al faction submitted a motion “in light of the wars in Iran and Gaza, and the heavy loss among civilians.”
Faction chairman MK Ayman Odeh called for an end to the fighting, arguing that “not only has this criminal government failed, the opposition is also being dragged along with it time and time again, in quiet and shameful surrender.”
After the motion is voted down, Ohana says lawmakers “sent a strong message to our enemy: We are one people, and in such fateful moments we all stand together.”
The Times of Israel Community.