Ben Gvir rides with Lod police as they nab man for Palestinian flag graffiti on city hall

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir accompanied police on Wednesday evening, as did a camera crew from a pro-government news channel, for the arrest of a young man who allegedly spraypainted a Palestinian flag onto Lod’s city hall.

Police and Border Police officers raided the home of the suspect, the son of a city councilman in the mixed Jewish-Arab city, just before sunset. The arrest was supervised by Ben Gvir and accompanied by cameras from Channel 14 News, a right-wing outlet favored by the minister.

“There is no one who incites against the state that the police will give in to. Those days have ended,” Ben Gvir said in a video posted to his social media depicting the arrest. “Anyone who incites, they [police] arrest him, enter his house.”

The man, in his 20s, is suspected of publishing a call to violence, maintaining contact with a foreign agent, vandalism and causing damage. He was scheduled to be brought to court Thursday morning for a remand hearing.

The vandalism took place overnight on March 1, hours after the outbreak of the ongoing war with Iran. The graffiti incensed Jewish residents and the city’s mayor, Yair Revivo, who vowed to hang up more Israeli flags throughout the city in response.

In footage shared by law enforcement, officers were seen rushing to the entrance of the man’s home and banging on the door. Heavily armed Border Police officers searched the rooms of the house with their assault rifles drawn as other officers stood around the perimeter of the property.

Police blindfolded the suspect, cuffed his hands and legs, then had him kneel on the floor of his house. He was later seen being led to a police patrol car by officers.

Ben Gvir and most of his entourage remained outside the suspect’s house for the duration of his arrest, and spoke at length with Lod police station chief Commander Meidad Lavie.

מי שמסית, מי שתומך בטרור, מי שמרסס דגלי אויב – ייתקל ביד קשה של משטרת ישראל.
זו המדיניות שלי, ואני מברך את השוטרים על היישום הנחוש שלה בשטח. pic.twitter.com/6BopRgCJ4v

— איתמר בן גביר (@itamarbengvir) March 11, 2026

Ben Gvir, police and prison officials have touted heightened enforcement against alleged incitement offenses since the outbreak of the war with Iran at the end of February.

On March 1, Ben Gvir visited a half-collapsed apartment complex in Tel Aviv that had been hit by an Iranian missile, where a woman had been killed the night before.

“Anyone who raises his head to try to incite against the State of Israel… we will thrash him, we will tear his head off,” he told reporters at the scene, backdropped by police officers and the blast site.

In a similar case that week, police arrested two Israeli women suspected of spray-painting the colors of the Palestinian flag on a protective concrete block at a bus stop in the West Bank.

The colors — green, red, black and white — were painted over a blue Star of David and what appears to be a map of Israel that includes the West Bank and Gaza.

The pair, both middle-aged women from Jerusalem, were arrested south of Jericho and were interrogated at a police station in the West Bank, police said.