Sharon Sharabi, brother of former hostages Eli and Yossi, joins Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu

By Ariela Karmel

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4 May 2026, 2:21 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.

Sharon Sharabi (L) and Avigdor Liberman (R) in an undated photo released May 4, 2026 (Yisrael Beytenu)

Avigdor Liberman’s right-wing opposition Yisrael Beytenu party announces that Sharon Sharabi, brother of slain hostage Yossi Sharabi and former hostage Eli Sharabi, is joining the party ahead of upcoming elections.

Sharabi emerged as a prominent advocate for the release of the hostages abducted to Gaza during the Hamas-led October 7,2023 attack, including his brothers, Yossi and Eli, who were kidnapped from their homes on Kibbutz Beeri. Yossi was later murdered in captivity, while Eli was released 16 months later in February 2025. Eli’s wife, Lianne, and their teen daughters, Noiya and Yahel, were killed on October 7.

Liberman welcomes the move, saying Sharabi brings “civic leadership” and “represents values of responsibility, mutual solidarity and strengthening Israeli society’s resilience.”

Sharabi, who is religiously observant despite Yisrael Beytenu’s largely secular character, says he is joining the party out of “a deep responsibility toward Israeli society as a whole,” adding that as a member of the religious Zionist community and a resident of the West Bank settlement of Alfei Menashe, he will work to “strengthen Jewish settlement, security and mutual responsibility in Israeli society.”

While he “grew up” with the ruling Likud, Sharabi says that the party has since abandoned its traditional “national, statesmanlike and security-focused” values.

“Today, ‘the Likud of the past’ is Yisrael Beytenu,” Sharabi says, calling Liberman “a true right-wing leader” and the only one who wasn’t part of the ‘conceptzia,’ referring to the pre-October 7 belief among the country’s leadership that Hamas was deterred, adding that Liberman had warned of the massacre and called for Hamas’s elimination.

The hawkish leader has previously said that his plans to assassinate Hamas leadership as defense minister were repeatedly overruled by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Liberman resigned as defense minister in 2018, bringing down Netanyahu’s government, over a ceasefire reached in the wake of an unprecedentedly fierce two-day barrage of over 400 rockets fired by Hamas and other terror groups at Israel.