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55 Parties Receive Nomination Forms to Run in Upcoming Israel Elections

Head of the Likud party Benjamin Netanyahu greets his supporters during an election campaign in Jerusalem on Sunday, September 11, 2022. (EPA)
Head of the Likud party Benjamin Netanyahu greets his supporters during an election campaign in Jerusalem on Sunday, September 11, 2022. (EPA)
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55 Parties Receive Nomination Forms to Run in Upcoming Israel Elections

Head of the Likud party Benjamin Netanyahu greets his supporters during an election campaign in Jerusalem on Sunday, September 11, 2022. (EPA)
Head of the Likud party Benjamin Netanyahu greets his supporters during an election campaign in Jerusalem on Sunday, September 11, 2022. (EPA)

Israel heads to the polls for the fifth time in under four years and is scheduled to hold its 25th Knesset (Israel's parliament) elections on Nov.1.

The process to submit candidate lists to the Central Election Committee started on Wednesday morning, as 55 parties have received their nomination forms so far.

Registration for parties seeking to run in the upcoming elections will end on Thursday at 10 pm.

Not all of the parties who requested the forms shall run in the upcoming elections.

In the last elections, 39 lists competed, but only 13 lists passed the electoral threshold (3.25% of the vote).

Former MK Eli Avidar’s Israel Free and Democratic party was the first to submit its list.

Avidar, who is known to be of Egyptian origin and speaks Arabic fluently, was until recently a member of Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party before rebelling against his former faction and the outgoing coalition several times and ultimately forming his own faction.

He sought to pass a law to prevent indicted politicians from becoming prime minister and accused Bennet of withholding the law citing fears from Netanyahu and his camp, and said that failure to enact this law would overthrow the government and return Netanyahu to power.

Hadar Muchtar, who chairs the Fiery Youth party, was the second to submit her list. The party is running on a platform of combating the surging cost of living and corruption. It also advocates greater public involvement in the political process by holding referendums on a number of issues.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s Blue and White Party applied next, followed by Lieberman’s party, Betzalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right religious Zionism party, and former Israeli Ministry of Finance accountant general Yaron Zelekha’s New Economic Party.

Most politicians postpone submitting their lists until the last moments, especially parties with disagreements, such as Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party and the Joint List coalition of Arab factions and others.

The three Israeli factions currently within the Joint List agreed to run together again on Wednesday.

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World

Public Mourns 35 Killed in Attack at Sports Complex in Southern Chinese City

A man offers flowers outside the "Zhuhai People's Fitness Plaza" where a man rammed his car into people exercising at the sports center, in Zhuhai in southern China's Guangdong province on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (AP)
A man offers flowers outside the "Zhuhai People's Fitness Plaza" where a man rammed his car into people exercising at the sports center, in Zhuhai in southern China's Guangdong province on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (AP)
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Public Mourns 35 Killed in Attack at Sports Complex in Southern Chinese City

A man offers flowers outside the "Zhuhai People's Fitness Plaza" where a man rammed his car into people exercising at the sports center, in Zhuhai in southern China's Guangdong province on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (AP)
A man offers flowers outside the "Zhuhai People's Fitness Plaza" where a man rammed his car into people exercising at the sports center, in Zhuhai in southern China's Guangdong province on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (AP)

Members of the public paid their respects Wednesday to people killed by a driver who rammed into people exercising a sports complex in southern China, as the country mourned, but little information was available about the suspect or the victims in the attack.

The crash Monday night in Zhuhai killed 35 people and severely injured 43 others, and the driver was detained as he was trying to escape. Authorities said the 62-year-old man with the surname Fan was upset over his divorce settlement.

Members of the public had started bringing flowers in honor of the victims Tuesday night and continued into Wednesday.

There was a light police presence in the morning at the Zhuhai sports complex, which was closed until further notice, but the number of officers increased as the morning passed.

While police allowed people to leave bouquets of flowers in memory of the dead just outside the entrance of the sports complex, volunteers then quickly moved the flowers inside to the sports center.

“May there be no thugs in heaven,” said the message on one bouquet. “Good deeds will be rewarded and evil deeds will be punished.”

The attack occurred on the eve of the Zhuhai Airshow, an aviation exhibition sponsored by the People's Liberation Army that is held every two years.

China authorities often make extra efforts to tightly control information around major or sensitive events like the airshow. Censors also take extra care around major catastrophes or violence, often censoring eyewitness accounts. Clear information on the death and injury toll was not available for almost 24 hours after the attack.

Videos were quickly censored inside China, though they circulated outside the Great Firewall. They were posted by Teacher Li, an artist turned dissident who runs a X account with 1.7 million followers that posts crowdsourced videos about news in China.

Articles from Chinese media featuring interviews with survivors were quickly taken down Monday and Tuesday. The news that trended about the attack was largely based on official statements from authorities.

Police said their preliminary investigation found Fan was dissatisfied with the split of financial assets in his divorce. Beyond that description, further information was not available on his divorce or alleged motive.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for the “strict” punishment of the perpetrator according to law, in a statement Tuesday evening.

He also called on all local governments “to strengthen prevention and control of risks at the source, strictly prevent extreme cases from occurring, and to resolve conflicts and disputes in a timely manner,” according to the official Xinhua news agency.