Yair Golan said planning to run in Labor party primaries

Yair Golan, a former IDF deputy chief of staff and a lawmaker with the left-wing Meretz party will run in the upcoming Labor party leadership primaries, Hebrew media report.

The Ynet news site quotes sources close to Golan as saying he hopes to unite Israel’s left-wing camps and help bring down the current government.

Golan won widespread acclaim in the wake of the October 7 Hamas assault. Upon hearing the news of the attack, he headed to the scene of the worst massacre at the Nova music festival and helped rescue dozens of people from the terrorists.

In December, Labor party chief Merav Michaeli announced her planned resignation from political life and her intention to step down as party leader.

Her move comes a year after being blamed for the failure of the left in recent elections by refusing to join forces with Meretz, leading to the left-wing party narrowly missing the vote threshold necessary to enter the Knesset and helping Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put together a hard-right coalition.

Since then Labor has consistently failed to cross the election threshold in polling.

The primaries will be held in April.