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After three years of continuous aggression against the Gaza Strip, Israel is heading into Knesset elections on Oct. 27, 2026, with military service by reserve soldiers having become a political issue pressing parties from within their own bases.
Years of lengthy call-ups have pushed reserve soldiers and officers, families of the dead, and figures from settlements targeted on Oct. 7 to the forefront, opening a direct path for some of them onto electoral lists.
This segment spans the right, the center, and religious currents. At the same time, broad sections of it are united by demands related to drafting the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews who refuse conscription and say they are devoted to worship), sharing the burden of service, investigating the failure of Oct. 7, and the “rights” of reserve soldiers.
As a result, service has become a new source of “political legitimacy” and a test of how reserve soldiers’ experiences shape party platforms and influence the formation of the next occupation government.
Long war service is reshaping Israel’s political class
Data from Israel’s National Insurance Institute, the official body responsible for insurance and social benefits, reveal the scale of the transformation that has hit the reserve system since Oct. 7.
The data, covering service from October 2023 through the end of 2025, showed a growing share of people serving long and repeated periods in the reserves, with a large share concentrated in age groups that overlap with university study, the start of a professional career, and starting a family. The call-ups also affected the labor market and families, especially the self-employed and those whose incomes depend on consistent work.
In a study published by Israel’s Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in 2026, researchers estimated that repeated absence from the labor market could leave a long-term impact on wage trajectories. They also documented declines in the incomes of some wives of reserve soldiers and harm to self-employed women, alongside tens of thousands of students whose studies were disrupted by repeated call-ups.
As these costs spread from the front to work, family, and education, the issue of drafting the Haredim gained greater political weight because, for reserve soldiers, it is directly tied to the question of how many future rounds the occupation army will ask them to bear, and to the continued exemption of a broad sector from service. At the same time, the same groups are repeatedly called up.
The issue’s impact extends beyond the reserve public. The Israeli Democracy Institute showed that 68 percent of Jews consider Oct. 7 a major factor in their voting decision. As the debate over conscription widened, the Haredi issue shifted from a chronic dispute over religion and state to a matter tied to the needs of the occupation army, the sustainability of the reserve system, and the cost of prolonged call-ups.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Ariel Heiman, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, or INSS, and the former commander of the reserve system, had warned as early as December 2023 against assuming that reserve soldiers would remain at the army’s disposal for open-ended periods, pointing to the impact of long service and repeated call-ups on soldiers, their families, and their businesses.
He also linked the expanding burden to a sense that it is unfairly distributed within society. He predicted that reserve soldiers, along with families of the dead and captives (who were later released in deals with the Palestinian resistance) and settlers in border areas, would be at the forefront of those demanding accountability for the failure of Oct. 7.
In March 2024, Heiman and INSS researcher Edith Shafran Gittleman again warned that plans to extend service periods and increase reserve days would deepen the burden on the groups already serving, while other sectors remained outside conscription.
Since then, the relationship between expanding the reserves and drafting the Haredim has become part of the debate over the system’s ability to endure, after call-ups moved beyond the short, intermittent service model it had been based on for decades.
Civil institutions also began treating the effects of long service as a social issue. In 2025 and 2026, the Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, Bar-Ilan University, and Reichman University created special arrangements for those who had served more than 300 days, with some accommodations extended to their husbands and wives.
These measures reflect how the effects of call-ups have spread beyond the military institution, as study, work, and family care have become part of the daily cost of prolonged service.
Moti Safrai, a researcher at Israel’s Herzog Academic College with previous experience in social research within the occupation army’s behavioral sciences system, raised another question in a study published in 2026: why this burden was slow to turn into broad protest.
He found that the first year after Oct. 7 saw high levels of solidarity around reserve soldiers. That discussion on social media leaned more toward supporting them and addressing their practical problems than toward becoming a broad protest movement, despite growing debate over inequality in service.
The politicization of the reserve issue came gradually, as call-ups continued and their costs accumulated, before movements and forums emerged that placed conscription, rights, and accountability among their demands and then pushed their figures into parties and electoral lists.
This is how the outlines of the political class produced over the past three years have taken shape: through a shared social experience, interests tied to service, and a growing ability to pressure issues of burden-sharing and accountability, even as its members remain spread across different political tendencies.
Reserve soldiers are now entering electoral lists, exemplified by the Reserve Soldiers Party founded by Yoaz Hendel, which directly links military service experiences to political representation and policy influence.
The Reserve Soldiers Party, founded by former minister and reserve officer Yoaz Hendel, embodies the direct move from military service into politics, with conscription of Haredim and equal sharing of the burden of military service among its central demands.
The party was officially registered on 18 September 2025, after Hendel began establishing it in August. It grew out of the Reserve Soldiers movement that emerged after 7 October.
At its registration, the party said its ranks included reserve soldiers and their families, wounded soldiers, bereaved families and civilian volunteers. It placed universal service and the establishment of an official commission of inquiry among its core political demands.
The party’s internal elections in June 2026 highlighted a different kind of military profile. Among those who emerged were Maj Yoav Adomi, deputy commander of Battalion 8111 in the 5th Brigade, after around 550 days of reserve duty; Roi Frank, a reserve platoon commander in the Negev Brigade, after around 440 days; Lt Col Erez Ben Ezra, after nearly 400 days; and Maj Tehila Peretz, a casualty affairs officer who accompanied wounded soldiers and their families and served around 700 days.
The group also included Shlomi Damari, who served about 500 days and lost his brother Dan in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, and Amalia Keinan, head of the local emergency team in the settlement of Yonatan in the occupied Syrian Golan.
Taken together, these figures point to a shift in the kind of military credentials that can carry political weight. Alongside the traditional prestige attached to the rank of general or the post of army chief of staff, a new currency has emerged: the number of days served in reserve, battlefield rank and direct experience since 7 October.
This marks a departure from the route taken by figures such as Ehud Barak, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, who entered politics after rising to the upper ranks of Israel’s military establishment. The emerging model is less about reaching the top of the army and more about demonstrating sustained service on the battlefield — and turning that experience directly into political capital.
In July 2026, Hendel allied with politician Chili Tropper under the name “The Zionist Home-Reserve Soldiers,” and figures directly tied to the effects of Al-Aqsa Flood joined the project, including Shira, the mother of Aner Shapira, who was killed during the Nova festival attack, and Elisaf Peretz, a reserve fighter from a family several of whose sons were killed during military service.
On Sept. 6, the alliance ended, and Tropper moved to the Yashar party led by former Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, while Hendel moved toward an electoral agreement with economist and former accountant general Yaron Zelekha.
The next day, the two groups unveiled a joint electoral list called “Reserve Soldiers and the Economy”. Hendel and Zelekha headed the list, followed by Einat Wilf in third, Yoav Adomi in fifth, and Shlomi Damari in seventh.
Yashar also provides a model for bringing these figures into a broader political framework. Eisenkot retained the party leadership, while Tropper secured a prominent position on the list. Others whose public profiles had been shaped by the post-7 October period, including Shira Shapira and Elisaf Peretz, also joined the party.
On the right of the political map, Brig. Gen. (res.) Ofer Winter founded the Amcha Yisrael (People of Israel) party and included on its list several figures whose rise was tied to the war and Al-Aqsa Flood.
Among them was Lili, the mother of Sgt 1st Class (res) Saadia Yaakov Dery, who was killed in Gaza in June 2024 and became one of the public voices calling for the conscription of Haredim. The list also included Sigal Krawonik-Atiya, widow of Arik Krawonik, the security coordinator of Kibbutz Be’eri who was killed on 7 October; Maj (res) Davidi Ben Zion, deputy head of the West Bank settlers’ council; and Col (res) Eli Gino, former commander of the Givati reconnaissance unit.
Winter’s list also included Aviv Ezra, a leader of the Generation of Victory movement, which has campaigned in recent years for preferential treatment for reserve soldiers in universities and public-sector employment.
Ezra’s inclusion points to another route through which this constituency is entering electoral politics. Organizations established to represent reservists’ interests have increasingly become recruitment grounds for political candidates, while demands that once took the form of public pressure now appear directly on electoral lists.
The lists’ composition also reflected different approaches to incorporating this emerging constituency. On the Hendel-Zelekha list, established political and public figures occupied the leading positions, with Adomi fifth and Damari seventh.
On Amcha Yisrael, Winter, Yoseph Haddad and Natali Shem Tov were placed ahead of several bereaved family members, officers and activists drawn from reserve networks. Yashar, meanwhile, remained anchored by Eisenkot, Tropper and other established political and institutional figures, while bringing in a newer group of personalities whose public profiles had emerged in the aftermath of 7 October.
The reserves reorder party calculations.
Polling of the reserve community shows that this segment’s votes remain split between right-wing and centrist parties. At the same time, shared issues have emerged, led by the crisis of drafting the Haredim and accountability for the Oct. 7 failure.
Adi Geva, vice president of the Israeli polling firm Midgam, believes the map of reserve soldiers still largely mirrors Israel’s broader political map, and that service identity alone has not become a sufficient electoral basis for building a broad party.
The conscription of Haredim has emerged as the issue most likely to turn reserve service into direct political pressure. Some right-wing voters who have spent extended periods in reserve duty oppose the continued exemption. In contrast, right-wing parties rely on Haredi parties when calculating their prospects of forming a government. The issue therefore enters both coalition bargaining and party platforms, shaping political debate before and after elections.
Candidates emerging from the reserve networks are also facing growing pressure to make their position on the distribution of military service explicit. For these candidates, the issue is closely tied to the political capital built through their own experience of prolonged reserve duty and their claims to represent those who have carried much of the burden since 7 October.
Data from the Israeli Democracy Institute in 2026 show differences in issue rankings among the camps, with security and foreign policy leading on the right and conscription carrying greater weight in the center. This suggests that Al-Aqsa Flood added a new issue to existing divisions and reordered some of their priorities.
The limits of this convergence become clearer on Gaza, the Palestinian issue, settlements, and the relationship between religion and the state. Ofer Winter’s party is positioned on the right, combining support for the conscription of Haredim with calls for the displacement of Gaza’s residents.
Yoaz Hendel, meanwhile, is seeking to build a Zionist political framework that can bring together elements of the right and center around military service and the composition of future coalitions. Gadi Eisenkot has made an official commission of inquiry and a change in political leadership central to his message. Among religious Zionist voters, settlements, Gaza and religious identity remain major political concerns, alongside opposition in parts of the community to exemptions from military service.
The investigation into the failures surrounding 7 October provides another point of convergence. Polling among reserve soldiers, as well as surveys by the Israel Democracy Institute, has recorded broad support for an official commission of inquiry. However, support levels vary across political camps.
That demand creates common ground for reservists and bereaved families operating within otherwise different political projects. It could also become an issue in negotiations over forming the next Israeli government after the election.
The clearest test of whether the reserve constituency can develop into an independent political force is the trajectory of Yoaz Hendel’s party and the electoral list he subsequently formed with Yaron Zelekha.
Within a year, the party moved from an independent political framework to an alliance with Chili Tropper and later to a new list with Zelekha. At the same time, figures associated with Hendel’s political orbit moved to Yashar, while other reserve-linked figures joined Winter’s party and appeared on different electoral lists.
Rather than consolidating around a single political vehicle, the reserve constituency has therefore spread across several competing projects. That fragmentation puts parties built around military service and reserve identity to a more basic electoral test: whether the political capital accumulated through prolonged service can translate into votes sufficient to cross the electoral threshold.
The path of alliances and lists indicates that this segment’s broader influence is taking place within the parties themselves. They are attracting reserve officers, members of bereaved families, and figures whose public presence has been tied to the post-Al-Aqsa Flood period, benefiting from their credibility linked to service, the loss of loved ones, and direct contact with the consequences of military and political decisions.
That credibility gives those coming from the reserves greater room to influence party positions on conscription and accountability, even as the lists bearing their name remain electorally limited.
Prof. Yagil Levy, head of the Open University’s institute for the study of relations between the military and society, adds a long-term dimension to this debate. He sees the continuation of “military operations” and the repeated use of force as a shift toward a prolonged state of security.
This dynamic is reinforced by the reserve system itself, which repeatedly moves tens of thousands of Israelis between the front, their workplaces, and their families. As a result, the political questions surrounding military service and its costs remain present long after individual rounds of reserve duty have ended.
So far, the emerging picture is of a pressure constituency spread across several parties, connected by demands centered on military service, its distribution, and accountability for the failures surrounding 7 October. Its members remain divided, however, over Gaza, the Palestinians, settlements, the relationship between religion and the state, and the political future of Benjamin Netanyahu.
The strength of this constituency will ultimately be reflected in the election results: how many of its representatives enter the Knesset, and whether they can translate demands shaped by reserve service into concrete positions in party platforms and conditions in negotiations over forming the next Israeli government.