JERUSALEM

Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday to reassess National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's role due to his alleged political interference in police operations, Israel’s Haaretz daily reported.

Baharav-Miara said "the combination of the alleged improper interventions in police operations and the dependency of police officers on the minister for their promotions undermines the assurance that the police will act in loyalty to the public rather than the politicians.”

She noted in a letter sent to Netanyahu following a petition to the High Court of Justice against Ben-Gvir's position that incidents presented in the petition as well as incidents that precede it "create a rare, severe and ongoing pattern of law violations, breaches of duty and harm to fundamental governance principles, alongside the politicization of police work."

The attorney general also stressed that during his time in office, Ben-Gvir has made remarks that “could discourage judges from performing their duties, undermine their rulings in the eyes of police officers, intimidate law enforcement officials from executing their responsibilities and delegitimize investigations of police misconduct by the Police Internal Investigations Department, thereby eroding respect for its work within the Israel Police.”

Netanyahu’s office has not responded to the attorney general’s letter.

However, Ben-Gvir described the letter on X as “an attempt to overthrow the Prime Minister and the ministers due to their political positions.”

Ben-Gvir has made widely criticized statements, including calls for legislation that would allow the execution of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons as well as his advocacy for imposing Israeli sovereignty over illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala