Weeks before the Knesset elections scheduled for 27 October 2026, Israeli reserve Brigadier General Ofer Winter announced the formation of the “Amcha Yisrael” party (“Your People, Israel”). Launched in occupied Jerusalem on 25 August, the party soon caused concern in Benjamin Netanyahu’s camp. Early polls gave it four to eight seats, but right-wing parties fear it could split their vote and leave those votes unrepresented if it fails to cross the 3.25 per cent electoral threshold.
Winter has unsettled Netanyahu’s camp despite pledging to recommend him for prime minister. His refusal to join a list with Bezalel Smotrich, and his insistence on running independently, put him in direct competition with Netanyahu’s allies for the same voters.
Winter enters the election with a 34-year military career and a record of rhetoric calling for the displacement of Gaza’s residents and putting his soldiers’ safety above the protection of Palestinian civilians or the laws of war. He has openly expressed these criminal views throughout his military career.
Family roots and ideological influences
Winter was born on 3 February 1971 in the settlement of “Rekhasim,” east of Haifa, where ultra-Orthodox Jews make up the majority of the population. He grew up in Kiryat Ata and says he inherited his interest in military service from his father, David, who served in the armoured corps during the October 1973 war.
The strongest influence on his outlook, however, came from the religious military institutions he attended. He studied at the Or Etzion boarding school, then at the Bnei David pre-military academy in the settlement of Eli, north of Ramallah. The academy was among the institutions that helped young men from the Religious Zionist movement rise to leadership positions in combat units.
Alongside his military training, Winter studied “Land of Israel studies” at Bar-Ilan University, earned two master’s degrees in military and security studies and political science, and graduated from the National Security College.
He lives in the settlement of Mitzpe Netofa in the Lower Galilee and is married with eight children. In the speech launching his party, he again invoked the evacuation of the Gush Katif settlements in 2005, saying that friends and family members had been harmed by it. The episode shows how he views Gaza politically: as land to which the settler right wants to return.
From Sayeret Matkal to Rafah: 34 years in the occupation army
Winter joined the occupation army in 1990, initially serving in the special forces unit “Sayeret Matkal,” before moving to the Maglan special operations unit and taking part in operations in southern Lebanon. During the April 1996 aggression, his platoon was in the Qana area, near a force led by Naftali Bennett, before Israeli shelling killed 102 Lebanese civilians inside a UN compound. That period marked the beginning of his relationship with Bennett, which would later affect his military career.
He moved to the Givati Brigade, commanding its reconnaissance company and then its battalion between 2003 and 2005. Those years saw repeated incursions into the Gaza Strip during the second intifada. The army command awarded the battalion commendations for its operations, particularly major offensives such as “Days of Penitence,” known to Palestinians as “Days of Rage,” which targeted northern Gaza, especially Jabalia refugee camp, and lasted 17 consecutive days.
After serving as a military attaché to the US Marine Corps in Washington, Winter commanded the undercover “Duvdevan” unit, which conducts covert operations in the West Bank. He took part with the unit in the assault on Gaza in 2008 and 2009. He went on to command a reserve paratroopers brigade and then the northern brigade of the Gaza Division, holding the latter post during the November 2012 assault. These postings kept him closely involved in the two territories on which he would later base his political rhetoric: the West Bank and Gaza.
Winter took command of Givati in August 2013 and led it during the 2014 assault. Before the ground invasion, he sent his officers a message that framed the battle in religious terms, speaking of fighting those he described as “taunting, blaspheming and cursing the God of Israel’s battles.” The message caused controversy in Israel over the introduction of religious doctrine into combat orders. It also foreshadowed what would become an enduring feature of his public image.
On 1 August 2014, after Lieutenant Hadar Goldin was captured in Rafah, Winter announced over the radio the activation of the “Hannibal Protocol,” which was associated with the use of overwhelming force to prevent captors from moving a captured soldier to a secure location. Extensive shelling of the city followed. According to the Israeli military investigation, more than 2,000 bombs, rockets and shells were fired that day, about 1,000 of them in the three hours after the capture. Amnesty International cited testimony from brigade officers showing that the possibility of Goldin’s death did not stop the attack.
A joint investigation by Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture documented the killing of at least 135 Palestinian civilians during the attacks on Rafah between 1 and 4 August, including 75 children. It recorded shelling of homes, streets, an ambulance and the area around Abu Youssef al-Najjar Hospital, and concluded that there was strong evidence of possible war crimes and perhaps crimes against humanity.
The occupation army’s investigation, by contrast, acknowledged failures but found no criminal acts in the conduct of the battle. “Black Friday” remained the darkest episode in Winter’s record and in his reputation among both “Israelis” and Palestinians, however much he tries to present it as a model of military decisiveness.
Frozen out of the military, then into politics
Winter never reached the rank of major general. After commanding Givati, he served as chief of staff of Central Command, then as military secretary to four defence ministers, including Netanyahu, Bennett and Gantz, before commanding Division 98 between 2020 and 2022.
His relationship with Bennett remained a source of friction with the military leadership. In 2021, he was reprimanded for communicating with Bennett without permission. He had previously faced accusations of bypassing the chain of command to convey information about the 2014 war. He was then passed over for promotion to major general in May 2023.
Winter held no post on the morning of 7 October 2023 and, on his own initiative, headed to the area around “Be’eri” near Gaza. Days later, he met Netanyahu without the army leadership’s involvement, according to Israeli reports that differed on what he proposed. Channel 12 said he suggested a full military siege instead of a ground invasion, while an account attributed to Channel 13 said he presented plans to occupy the Strip. Winter denied a figure attributed to him for potential losses among soldiers but confirmed that he had proposed “a strong, short and smart war leading to decisive victory.”
In May 2024, the chief of staff informed Winter that his service was being terminated. The right portrayed the decision as proof that the military establishment punishes the “offensive officer.” Winter summed up his dispute with the army in a phrase that would become central to his political programme: “Enemy civilians come after my soldiers.” He entered public life on that basis, taking his longstanding conflict with army commanders into electoral politics.
The doctrine of “decisiveness” instead of “containment”
Winter presents himself as an alternative to the doctrine of managing the conflict through repeated rounds of military action. He says three years of war have produced no decisive outcome on any front and calls for taking the initiative and achieving “victory.” This language allows him to outflank Netanyahu’s government from the right while remaining within its camp. His objection concerns the amount of force used and the speed at which the desired result is achieved; he does not dispute its underlying principle, goals or direction.
In Gaza, his idea of “decisiveness” takes a more concrete form. Winter links victory to the “mass migration” of Palestinians, describing it as a historic opportunity, and rejects the establishment of a Palestinian state. Discussing the Strip’s future, he repeatedly says he will help residents “emigrate,” while the Hind Rajab Foundation has documented statements attributed to him saying the war should end with a Gaza without Palestinians. When asked about his call for migration, he stood by it, describing it as good for Palestinians and for “Israel.”
Winter criticises former army commanders who said they risked soldiers’ lives to protect civilians, calling that “crooked morality,” and rejects international law as a basis for the army’s ethics. According to the Hind Rajab Foundation, he also called for destroying homes in Gaza to protect soldiers and challenged the authority of international courts.
In March 2026, the foundation announced that it had filed a criminal complaint against him in Italy concerning war crimes in 2014 and incitement to genocide. Winter rejected its accusations. Yet his public statements make clear the place of civilian protection in his conception of war, and his bloody military record is plainly marked by crimes.
Winter does not regard the religious message he sent his soldiers in 2014 as a passing mistake. He says he prayed according to the traditions of his forefathers and makes no apology for doing so. His combination of military language and biblical references brings him closer to the Religious Zionist public. It allows him to address its young people and officers as a combat commander who came through their institutions, rather than a politician borrowing their vocabulary during an election campaign.
Conscription and selective “partnership” with Arabs
Winter’s domestic agenda includes ultra-Orthodox conscription, judicial reform and fighting crime. His list includes the “Arab” activist Yoseph Haddad, who aspires to join the security cabinet, alongside figures from soldiers’ families and settlements. Haddad’s presence nevertheless shows that some “Arabs” are willing to go further in their Zionism, as the list’s programme and membership make clear.
The list also includes Davidi Ben Zion, deputy head of the Shomron Settlements Council, who in 2023 called for Huwara to be “wiped out.” This illustrates the kind of “partnership” Winter offers Arabs: acceptance of the Zionist political framework, even as he explicitly calls for the displacement of Gaza’s Palestinians and his colleague calls for entire villages in the West Bank to be wiped out.
Where will Winter’s votes come from?
Estimates published by Israeli media after the party’s announcement show that its main support comes from the right. About 30 per cent of his backers previously supported Likud, 15 per cent Religious Zionism and 15 per cent Ben-Gvir’s party.
These figures offer an early indication of voter trends, but they explain how quickly Winter went from a minor competitor to a problem for the coalition. Each seat he takes from its members shifts the balance of power among them. If he falls below the threshold, the votes cast for him could weaken the camp’s ability to form a government.
He competes most directly with Smotrich. Polls gave Winter four to six seats while Religious Zionism fell below the electoral threshold. Other polls, however, suggested that an alliance between Smotrich and Moshe Feiglin could reverse that picture.
Both sides draw on an overlapping constituency within the national religious camp. Winter, however, has a military commander’s record and the public image of someone who bore no official responsibility for the failure of 7 October. This is why he refused to join a Smotrich-Feiglin alliance, preferring to test his support independently.
Why does Netanyahu fear him?
Likud fears two possible outcomes, each with different consequences for Netanyahu. Winter could take seats from his allies and then demand more in negotiations, or he could fall below the threshold, leaving right-wing votes the camp needs unrepresented.
These calculations are compounded by doubts about his political independence and his longstanding relationship with Bennett, despite his pledge to recommend Netanyahu. Attempts to contain him therefore went beyond public warnings about “burning votes”. Israeli reports said he was offered a place on the Likud list but refused.
Opinion polls remain volatile until election day, but they suggest three possible outcomes. Winter could cross the threshold with four to six seats, giving him leverage within a right-wing coalition on Gaza and conscription. He could fall below it, leaving his votes unrepresented and potentially hurting Netanyahu’s chances. Or he could win enough seats to become a kingmaker in government negotiations between closely matched blocs.
Winter’s trajectory reveals a broader shift in the Israeli right after 7 October, reflected in the rise of reserve officers who present their combat experience as a political mandate. They compete with religious party leaders to represent the same public, offering the experience of combat and conscription that Religious Zionist leaders lack.
If Winter reaches the Knesset, the significance will extend beyond the arrival of a new parliamentarian and party. It will give continuing and escalating extremism a new formal political expression. The discourse linking “victory” to the displacement of Palestinians, the casual killing of civilians, and expressions of genocidal intent and ethnic cleansing will gain a new platform within Israeli decision-making.