4 anti-government protesters charged with terror for firing flares at Netanyahu home
Prosecution alleges suspects had been warned by Shin Bet against using pyrotechnics, accuses group of acting out of ideological motivation to pressure PM
A senior officer in the military reserves and three others were hit with terror charges Monday stemming from allegations that they launched lit flares at the Caesarea home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month to place political pressure on him.
Rear Adm. (res.) Ofer Doron, 63, his son Gal Doron, 27, and two other longtime anti-government activists, Itay Yaffe, 62, and Amir Sadeh, 62, were indicted in Haifa District Court on charges of carrying out an act of terror through the reckless and negligent use of fire, and attempted arson. The two Dorons were also charged with obstruction of justice for initially lying to investigators about who fired one of the flares.
According to prosecutors, the four were involved in firing two flares at Netanyahu’s house on the night of November 16 during weekly protest activities against Netanyahu and the government.
Nobody was harmed in the incident and no damage was caused, and the Netanyahus were not home at the time.
The charge sheet alleges that some two months before the incident, Ofer Doron and Amir Sadeh attended a meeting with agents from the Shin Bet security service in which they were briefed on the acceptable limits of the protests, and specifically warned against using pyrotechnics, which have become a regular features at weekly protests in Tel Aviv.
The indictment states that the four showed up earlier in the day of the incident to scope out the area, including security arrangements. They then snuck out of the area by avoiding roads to keep from being detected by police. Some turned their phones to airplane mode.
The elder Doron is thought to have acquired the naval flares, which were expired, from fellow anti-government activists, a senior official in the police’s Lahav 433 major crimes unit told Channel 12 news last month.
He was suspended from the Israel Defense Forces in August 2023 in response to his decision to stop performing volunteer reserve duty over the government’s contentious judicial overhaul plan. Sadeh and Yafeh are also well-known figures in the anti-government protest movement, which has held regular protests outside Netanyahu’s home, alongside larger rallies in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
The indictment alleges that after arriving back in the area in separate vehicles later, the four surreptitiously made their way to a spot some 270 meters (885 feet) away from Netanyahu’s residence. Under the direction of Ofer Doron, Sadeh and Guy Doron fired the flares.
One flare initially hit vegetation outside Netanyahu’s home, causing fire and smoke that alerted a guard in the compound. Minutes later, the second flare landed near the entrance to the home, some two meters away from another guard who had run over to put out the fires.
According to the indictment, the flares were designed to burn at 30,000 candlepower for 40 seconds, enough to cause a serious injury.
“The accused did this as one team, in a hasty manner that could have endangered people’s lives or caused injury, out of ideological-political motivations, which according to them was aimed at sending a message to the prime minister and public as a whole that the protests activities in Caesarea were not ending, and to create an effect of greatly building pressure, which would lead, in their view, to advancing the protest’s goals,” the indictment read.
The defendants have claimed in the past that they were not aiming for Netanyahu’s house. According to Ynet, prosecutors may be challenged to disprove the claim given the difficulty in precisely aiming that type of naval flare.
The indictment also accused the elder Doron of covering up for his son by initially telling investigators he fired one of the flares.
Prosecutors requested that the four be held in custody until the end of proceedings against them; the court decided it would keep them behind bars for now, but hold another hearing on their possible release later this week, Hebrew media reported.
Gonen Ben Yitzhak, a protest leader acting as attorney for some of the defendants, decried the inclusion of terror charges on the rap sheets, noting that the state prosecution had acknowledged that the defendants were not trying to harm Netanyahu.
“This decision is sullied with politics, a warning to all protesters that any use of pyrotechnics could turn into a terror incident,” he said.
Prosecutor Shelley Zeevi Barzilai told the court that the flare-firing should not be viewed as part of the larger protest movement, which took shape to oppose Netanyahu’s plans to overhaul the judiciary and has become a leading voice pushing the government to reach a deal releasing hostages held in Gaza.
“We’ve seen that good people can do bad things,” she said. “What happened here was violent activity, with the use of maps and avoiding detection by cameras.”
Last week, Netanyahu’s wife Sara requested she be recognized as the victim of an attempted terror attack, though she was not in the home at the time.
Victims of a crime are entitled by law to be asked by prosecutors for their position on any plea bargain that might be proposed to those indicted over the incident, and on the punishment that might be meted out by the court.
The Netanyahus’ home in Caesarea was lightly damaged in a Hezbollah drone attack in October. Following that attack, the government reportedly demanded a NIS 2 million (just over half a million dollars) security upgrade at the estate.
