Ephraim Sneh

Ephraim Sneh was born in 1944 in Tel Aviv

Sneh was born in Tel Aviv in 1944. His father, Moshe Sneh, was one of the heads of the Haganah and later a Knesset member for Mapam and Maki. He attended Ironi Aleph high school in Tel Aviv.

He served in Nahal from 1962 to 1964. He then studied medicine at Tel Aviv University and specialized in internal medicine.

He returned to the army as a doctor in the Paratroopers Brigade and led medical teams in the Yom Kippur War and Operation Entebbe. He later commanded Unit 669 and the security zone in southern Lebanon. His last post was head of the civil administration in the West Bank, and he retired as a brigadier general.

He joined the Labor Party in December 1987 and was elected to the Knesset in 1992. He was Minister of Health from 1994 to 1996, Deputy Minister of Defense from 1999 and again from 2006 to 2007, and Minister of Transportation from 2001. He opposed the withdrawal from southern Lebanon but accepted the government decision.

In May 2008 he left Labor and the Knesset and founded the Yisrael Hazaka party, which did not pass the electoral threshold in 2009. He lives in Herzliya and is married.