The Media Line: Hostage Family Advocate and Bereaved Father Join Liberman’s Party Ahead of 1,000-Day Mark Since October 7 

Hostage Family Advocate and Bereaved Father Join Liberman’s Party Ahead of 1,000-Day Mark Since October 7 

By Gabriel Colodro / The Media Line 

Two prominent Israeli voices shaped by the trauma of October 7 formally joined Yisrael Beitenu this week, giving opposition lawmaker Avigdor Liberman’s party a sharper emotional and political message ahead of the symbolic 1,000-day mark since the Hamas-led attack. 

Sharon Sharabi, brother of former hostage Eli Sharabi and of Yossi Sharabi, who was murdered in captivity in Gaza, and Rafi Ben Shitrit, father of fallen IDF soldier Elroy Ben Shitrit, delivered their first speeches at the party’s weekly faction meeting on Monday. 

Both men framed their decision as a move from private grief into public responsibility. Sharabi said the massacre had turned within hours “from a personal disaster for many families into a national disaster for an entire country.” He spoke of bereaved families, fallen soldiers, and a society still struggling with security, trust, and a sense of belonging. “How is it possible that 1,000 days have passed and Hamas, a Nazi terrorist organization, is still in the Gaza Strip, still trying to harm our soldiers and the citizens of the State of Israel?” Sharabi said. 

He said Yisrael Beitenu in the next government would work to defeat Hamas, while also calling for a stronger and more united Israeli society. For Sharabi, the remarks were not only political. He recalled the loss of four family members: his brother Yossi, his sister-in-law Lianne, and Eli’s daughters, Noiya and Yahel. “Our mission is to pass on to the next generations a stronger, more united and safer state,” he said. 

Ben Shitrit delivered a more directly political speech, linking the approaching 1,000-day mark to the Hebrew date of the breaching of Jerusalem’s walls before the destruction of the Second Temple. “The symbolic connection is clear and painful,” he said, arguing that on October 7, “the walls of defense and security of the State of Israel were breached.” 

Ben Shitrit said Israelis had been waiting 1,000 days for answers. He argued that only a state commission of inquiry, independent of the political system, could examine what went wrong before and during the October 7 attack, from the intelligence failures to the government’s decisions in the years leading up to it. He said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bears ultimate responsibility for what happened, arguing that the prime minister’s continued opposition to a state commission only deepens public distrust. 

He also dismissed talk of a broad national government under Netanyahu as a political maneuver, saying the same leadership that advanced divisive policies and failed to prevent the disaster could not now present itself as a force of unity. 

Ben Shitrit said he entered national public life not from anger alone, but from a desire to restore “responsibility, truth, service, pioneering and dedication” to the center of Israeli politics. He praised Liberman as a leader with experience, strategic vision, and clear positions on Hamas, Hezbollah, military service, and governance. “I joined Yisrael Beitenu because Avigdor Liberman and Yisrael Beitenu tell the truth, even when it hurts,” he said. 

The move gives Yisrael Beitenu two new public figures whose biographies connect the party’s campaign message to the unresolved wounds of October 7: the demand for a state inquiry, the anger of bereaved families, and the argument that Israel’s next government must be built around accountability rather than political survival.