MK Ofer Shelah, a senior member of the Blue and White party, does not rule out the participation of MK Heba Yazbak, who is a member of the Balad faction of the predominantly Arab Joint List party, in a future coalition.
In an interview on Kan 11 News, MK Shelah said, "Heba Yazbak did indeed support terrorists. My friends are the ones who caught [Samir] Kuntar. We voted against her staying in the Knesset - and the court ruled the opposite."
"But the Joint List, which has 15 elected seats, should not be outside the coalition game. It's not the same. It is impossible to make a total disqualification," he claimed.
Yazbak called Samir Kuntar, who carried out the terrorist attack in Nahariya in 1979, a hero and a “shaheed” (martyr -ed.). In the fall of 2019, she praised the Al-Aqsa Intifada and the “shaheeds” of that intifada.
On September 30, 2019, Yazbak posted a message on Facebook in which she wrote, "I urge everyone to participate in the central procession tomorrow to mark the anniversary of the Second Intifada [Al-Aqsa Intifada] and the October uprising [in the Arab sector in Israel] at 4:00 p.m. in Kafr Kanna. We do not mark the memorial day just to remember it, but the basic purpose is to express the future we want. Glory to the shaheeds."
On October 1, 2019, Yazbak posted photos of the mass rally to mark the Al-Aqsa Intifada in which she participated. Alongside the photos, Yazbak wrote, "In Kafr Kanna. The 19th anniversary of the Second Intifada [the Al-Aqsa Intifada] and the Al-Quds and Al-Aqsa insurgency. Glory and eternity for our pure shaheeds and disgrace for the heartless criminals."
1,056 Israelis and 50 foreign citizens were murdered and 8,022 people were wounded during the Al-Aqsa Intifada which took place from September 2000 to February 2005. During the Al-Aqsa Intifada, hundreds of terrorist attacks and suicide bombings were carried out.