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Incoming Likud MK Elisha Madan (left) and incoming Yashar MK Shira Shapiro (right) attend an orientation session in the Knesset plenum in Jerusalem, a day before the opening ceremony of the 26th Knesset, November 9, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

When the new Knesset is sworn in Tuesday, 46 of its 120 members will take their seats as first-time lawmakers. The incoming class cuts across party lines, from former defense officials to political commentators. But a striking number also have a personal connection to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught and the war that followed.

Among them are bereaved parents and siblings, reservists, hostage advocates, and a former general who raced to rescue his family from terrorists near the Gaza border.

Their presence gives the new parliament an unusually direct link to the attack and its aftermath: relatives of those killed or taken hostage will sit alongside lawmakers who were in office when their loved ones were abducted or killed.

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