Former communications minister Yoaz Hendel announced on Thursday the registration of a new political party he is calling HaMiluimnikim (“The Reservists”), which will run in the next Knesset election.

In a statement, the new party said it comprises “reservists, families of reservists, wounded IDF soldiers, bereaved families and civilian volunteers.”

Hendel has not ruled out a partnership with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, and the statement said the party “will deal with principles and not political boycotts.” Such boycotts, the statement added, were “among the factors that led us to October 7.”

But in a thinly veiled reference to the prime minister, the statement also insisted that those responsible for the failures of October 7, 2023, “should go home and those who took responsibility that day, and since, should take control of the centers of power and lead the country.”

After he dropped out of the last Knesset race in 2022, when he was allied with former justice minister Ayelet Shaked, the center-right politician said that he preferred to pay “a political price” rather than lend his support to a narrow government led by Netanyahu.

The new party’s platform calls for a “Zionist government,” “service for all” and the “establishment of a committee of inquiry” to investigate the October 7 attack, a step the prime minister has resisted.........

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