From Yesh Atid MK blocked from establishing replacement health committee after Shas resignations halted regular committee operations
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam 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"
Lawmakers belonging to Opposition Leader Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party are blocked by Knesset security from entering the Health Committee chamber as they attempt to establish an alternative parliamentary panel.
The Knesset Education and Health committees have not met since late October, when the ultra-Orthodox Shas party resigned all the coalition positions it held in the Knesset, giving up the chairmanships of parliamentary committees to protest the lack of a law regulating the conscription of yeshiva students. No replacements have since been appointed, preventing the committees from continuing normal operations.
Yesh Atid announced this morning it would inaugurate an alternate health committee under the leadership of MK Tatiana Mazarsky, “in the absence of a permanent and functioning committee.”
“While the coalition is neglecting the health of the state’s citizens and choosing petty politics, we will continue to act and care for the people of Israel,” Mazarsky posted on X.
משמר הכנסת חוסם את דרכה של ח״כ טטיאנה מזרסקי (יש עתיד) לחדר הוועדה על מנת לנהל את ועדת הבריאות האלטרנטיבית.
הוועדה הוקמה במחאה על זה ששבועות אין ועדת חינוך או ועדת בריאות מתפקדת בכנסת אחרי ההתפטרות של ראשי הועדות מש״ס.
בכנסת טוענים כי זו הטעיה של הציבור והם מוזמנים להקים שדולה. pic.twitter.com/h8MfwMBzT8— דפנה ליאל (@DaphnaLiel) November 26, 2025
According to Yesh Atid, the establishment of an alternative health committee would have been “a direct continuation” of the alternative education committee established by MK Moshe Tur-Paz earlier this week.
“Yesh Atid will continue to present a real alternative to the failing government, and while they are busy with political whims, we will take care of the citizens of Israel,” the party stated.
Tur-Paz was unable to establish his committee on Monday because the Education Committee’s chamber was locked. Standing outside the committee room, Lapid accused the Knesset of sending the message: “I don’t care about the children, I’m shutting down the Education Committee.”
“All we are trying to do is bring a discussion on education into the Knesset of Israel. That’s why we’re here. That is the purpose of the alternative Education Committee. If the Knesset has a problem with that, it should reopen the Education Committee and let us address the educational issues that are not being addressed today,” Lapid said at the time.
Asked for comment, a spokesperson for Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana (Likud) sent The Times of Israel a copy of a letter from Knesset Secretary General Dan Marzouk to Yesh Atid MK Tur-Paz stating that while it is problematic that the Education Committee is currently not meeting and the desire to establish an alternative is understandable, such a course of action circumvents parliamentary rules of procedure and undermines the status of the actual panel.
Instead, Marzouk recommended working through parliamentary lobbies or holding informal conferences featuring “relevant groups from among the public.”
“Therefore, to the extent that you wish to hold informal discussions in the field of education in the Knesset building, you must do so in one of the accepted ways…and not by establishing an ‘alternative education committee,'” he wrote.
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