Former Beit Shemesh Mayor Aliza Bloch Joins Erdan-Edelstein Party

Former Beit Shemesh Mayor Aliza Bloch announced Monday that she is joining a new party founded by former Likud MKs Gilad Erdan and Yuli Edelstein. The announcement marks the first major recruitment for the unnamed party, which Bloch decided to join after weeks of discussions with Erdan and Edelstein as well as talks with figures from other parties.

Likud had attempted to retain Bloch by offering her a reserved spot on its Knesset slate, but she declined the offer. Her decision came four days after Erdan and Edelstein launched their party, which centers its platform on military enlistment, framing it as opposition to draft evasion.

At the party's launch, Erdan stated that it would not provide the 61st seat needed to form a government under either Binyamin Netanyahu or Gadi Eisenkot. He said the party targets "right-wing voters who voted for the coalition and do not want to continue perpetuating draft evasion, and for right-wing voters in the opposition who do not want a left-wing government."

According to a Channel 13 report, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett had approached Erdan months earlier to explore political cooperation, but Erdan declined to meet. The report attributed his refusal to opposition to the previous government and reservations about cooperating with parties that had participated in it. Bennett's office responded: "Former Prime Minister Bennett is working and will continue to work to create a Zionist government so that together we can fix Israel."