Jerusalem, 15 November, 2026 (TPS-IL) — Likud MK Elisha Medan, a newly elected lawmaker, set up a tent outside the Knesset in Jerusalem on Saturday night to call for a national unity government. He announced on X that he was heading to Jerusalem and said the tent was open to everyone who wanted to sit, drink hot tea, and talk. He was photographed putting it up with two of his children. The move came shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot to form a unity government, an appeal Eisenkot quickly dismissed as political spin.

The first 24 hours brought a steady stream of visitors. Dozens of supporters joined him on Saturday night. Religious Zionist lawmakers Itamar Eitam and Orit Strook came by that evening. Eitam returned on Sunday morning and, in an interview from the tent, urged Netanyahu and Eisenkot to start negotiating, recalled his shared combat experience with Medan, and invited the public to an evening gathering.

Medan said bereaved families, wounded soldiers and civilians from across Israel had visited, including residents of the Golan Heights and Kiryat Shmona. On Sunday afternoon, while Likud and Yashar negotiators were meeting, Netanyahu himself dropped in. A Likud statement said he congratulated Medan on the initiative, and that the two agreed unity was the order of the day. Medan noted that although Likud and Religious Zionist figures had come, he was still waiting for members of the change bloc, and asked them to come even just for a visit.

As for Medan’s own condition, no medical update has been reported. He has been working from the site, speaking to reporters and giving interviews. He said he intends to stay in the tent day and night, in the cold and the rain. He described a daily routine of waking in the encampment and then rolling in his wheelchair to the Knesset.

Medan lost both legs in November 2023 when a booby-trapped tunnel shaft exploded in northern Gaza during his army service; the blast also killed four other reservists.

Reactions have been mixed and largely split along political lines. Dani Elgarat of the Democrats, whose brother Itzik was abducted from Nir Oz and murdered in Hamas captivity, accused Medan of hypocrisy rather than unity. Others saw a political maneuver. Democrats MK Yariv Oppenheimer said Netanyahu wants another election, not unity, while party chairman Yair Golan said the change bloc should meet Arab party leaders instead of negotiating with Netanyahu.

Medan pushed back on the suggestion that he is Netanyahu’s instrument. He said he acts of his own free will and did not enter politics to be anyone’s tool, while acknowledging the complete lack of trust between the camps.

Supporters framed it differently. Eitam argued that neither bloc won decisively, so both sides must compromise, and that the public is telling its leaders to pursue unity. Medan told reporters the tent reflects what soldiers returning from long stretches on the front want most, which is a unity government.

The tent’s effect on the actual negotiations remains unclear. Likud and Yashar teams are talking, but Eisenkot’s negotiators are expected to propose a four-year government under his leadership without Likud’s right-wing partners, a proposal both sides expect to go nowhere. For now, the “Assembly Areas” tent, as Eitam called it, has become a gathering point for supporters and a talking point for critics.