Sami Abu Shehadeh Withdraws Candidacy After Supreme Court Hearing (Updated)

Original report Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh filed a formal response asking the Central Elections Committee to reject Otzma Yehudit's petition to bar him from the Knesset election. He denied supporting Hamas or armed struggle and said his October 8, 2023 article was intended as political and strategic analysis rather than praise for the massacre. Abu Shehadeh acknowledged that omitting an explicit condemnation of Hamas's crimes was, in retrospect, wrong, while arguing that the full scale of the atrocities was not yet known when he wrote. The committee will decide whether the evidence meets Basic Law: The Knesset's high threshold for disqualifying a candidate. Update • On October 2, the Supreme Court recorded Sami Abu Shehadeh’s withdrawal from the candidate list and closed his disqualification proceeding without deciding its merits.