Shas says will vote in favor of expelling Hadash-Ta’al’s Odeh from Knesset

By Sam Sokol 14 July 2025, 11:19 am

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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"

MK Ayman Odeh attends a Hadash–Ta'al faction meeting, at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on June 30, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The ultra-Orthodox Shas party announces that it will vote in favor of expelling MK Ayman Odeh, the chair of the majority Arab Hadash-Ta’al party, from the Knesset.

The Knesset is scheduled to vote this afternoon on whether to eject Odeh. The vote, which requires a supermajority of 90 out of 120 to pass, takes place after the Knesset House Committee last month approved lawmakers’ statutory 70-signature petition, which included at least 10 signatures from the opposition.

The petition was put forth in January, when Odeh said he was “happy for the release of hostages and prisoners” as part of the Gaza truce that was signed that month. The petition clinched the required number of signatures after Odeh said at an anti-war protest in Haifa in May that “Gaza has won and Gaza will win.”

In order for the motion to pass, all of the coalition lawmakers and 22 opposition MKs would need to vote in favor.

Yisrael Beytenu’s six MKs are expected to vote in favor.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party has given its lawmakers free rein to vote as they wish while it remains unclear how Benny Gantz’s Blue and White-National Unity party’s MKs will vote.