The details published on Monday of the investigation of police and Israel Prison Service (IPS) officers, including IPS chief Kobi Yaakobi, closely associated with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, have sent shockwaves through both organizations.
While it’s too early to predict the outcome of this investigation or whether it will reach the minister’s office or the minister himself, it’s already clear that this represents a significant upheaval at the top levels of these institutions.
Since assuming his role as National Security Minister, Ben-Gvir has appointed many officers who now form the police’s command structure. Others who were not promoted have resigned, openly criticizing the minister for allegedly filling the leadership ranks with his loyalists.
Ben-Gvir does not deny his desire to be involved in the appointments of officers from the rank of Superintendent and above to implement his policies. He personally interviews each candidate for promotion to these ranks. Just this past summer, in an unprecedented move, he rejected about twenty candidates for command positions within the police.
The revelations of the investigations, conducted until Monday under complete secrecy with only a select few in the Department of Internal Police Investigations aware, came as a thunderbolt to the police, IPS, and minister Ben-Gvir’s office.
The gag order on the investigation’s details, the limited information about its scope and the units involved have caused, among other things, considerable unrest and uncertainty across all involved.
In response, Ben-Gvir held a press conference last night, where he criticized the attorney general, alleging the investigation was politically motivated and aimed at toppling the right-wing government. Political figures were quick to draw parallels to the Feldstein case and the classified documents leak, though it is already clear, even at this early stage of the investigation, that such comparisons are unfounded.
MK Moshe Saada, former deputy head of police department, remarked on Monday that there were leaks to the minister in charge. It is cautiously estimated that one of the key issues likely to arise from the investigation is whether the minister in charge—in this case, Ben-Gvir—should or is entitled to have access to the most sensitive security information gathered on targets by the Shin Bet‘s Jewish Department, and whether there is a connection between the allegedly leaked information (according to Saada) and various appointments.
IPS Chief Commissioner Kobi Yaakobi was questioned on Monday on suspicion of obstruction of justice and breach of trust. Until less than a year ago, he served as the security secretary to Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and is considered very close to him.
After 26 years in the Israel Police, Yaakobi assumed his role as Commissioner of the IPS last January, implementing a series of reforms aligned with the minister’s policies and has received Ben-Gvir’s full support.
Yaakobi, whose rank is equivalent to that of the Police Commissioner, is the highest-ranking officer to have been questioned under caution in recent years. The suspicion is that, in his role as security secretary, he transmitted sensitive information to the minister’s office that he had received from a senior officer of the rank of Chief Superintendent in the Judea and Samaria District.
This officer holds one of the most sensitive positions in the district police and is currently a candidate for a senior role that would promote him to the rank of Brigadier General. His appointment to his current role by the minister raised eyebrows and subsequently drew criticism from the IDF, the Shin Bet, and human rights organizations operating in the territories.
The main claim is that since Ben-Gvir assumed the role of National Security Minister, the Judea and Samaria District’s actions against Jewish nationalist crime have significantly decreased.
In the past two years, fewer cases of Jewish nationalist crime have been opened, not because the number of incidents has dropped. Additionally, the clearance rate for such crimes has also significantly declined. The reason for this is Ben-Gvir’s declared policy, which prioritizes focusing on Palestinian terrorism in the West Bank while downplaying Jewish nationalist crime, which he described yesterday as being limited to “graffiti spraying, nothing more.”
Heading toward a clash?
It is still too early to determine how the investigation will conclude, how high it will reach, and whether it will lead to the collapse of the police command structure.
In any case, investigating Ben-Gvir or any of his office staff requires the approval of the attorney general. Such approval has not yet been granted, and the Department of Internal Police Investigations is currently focused on continuing the investigation of the officers questioned yesterday. Additional officers, some of them very senior, are expected to be summoned for questioning under caution.
In any case, Ben-Gvir has already declared that on Sunday, he will initiate steps to dismiss the attorney general, signaling that the emerging confrontation between these two forces is heading toward a major clash
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