Cop whose promotion is being blocked by Ben Gvir accuses him of threatening officers

Supt. Rinat Saban, a police detective whose promotion has been blocked by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir after she testified against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke out for the first time Sunday, accusing the politician of threatening officers for fulfilling their duty.

Ben Gvir has for months, against the counsel of senior police brass, been preventing the advancement of Saban, who helped investigate and later testified in Netanyahu’s corruption trial.

The far-right minister and Saban arrived at the Jerusalem District Court for a first hearing on her promotion to the rank of chief superintendent on Sunday morning.

“For an entire year I did not speak because it’s forbidden for an officer to comment, but it is important for me to speak,” Saban said, according to Walla. “It’s unbelievable that I have to stand here in court and explain why I should be promoted.”

She then turned to Ben Gvir in the courtroom and asked him: “Is there a threat here, minister?” accusing him of conveying a message to officers that they will pay a professional price for being involved with certain cases.

“This is a heavy personal price that I am paying here,” she said, according to the outlet.

Before the hearing began, Ben Gvir spoke to the press and accused Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who has demanded several times that the minister sign off on Saban’s promotion, of behaving like a member of a criminal gang.

“What you are seeing is behavior that is very much like that of a mafia… they are threatening me that if I don’t promote this officer, they’ll fire me,” he said, referring to the Attorney General’s Office.

Traditionally, the minister responsible for police signs off on officers’ promotions in rank. However, the signature was seen as little more than a formality until Ben Gvir was appointed.

Police chief Danny Levy has been seeking to promote the superintendent and argued in a November court filing that Ben Gvir’s refusal to give the final signature “could sow fear among police officers who testify in criminal investigations.”

Ben Gvir signed off on Saban’s promotion in December 2024 conditional on her completing the police command and staff course. She finished the course in April 2025, a month after testifying against Netanyahu in court. Then, in a reversal, he blocked the promotion.

Levy requested that the court grant him permission to go over Ben Gvir’s head and promote Saban should the ultranationalist minister refuse a potential court order to promote her.

Saban testified against Netanyahu in March and previously investigated his advisers Jonatan Urich and Ofer Golan on suspicion of harassing Shlomo Filber, a state witness in Case 4000, the most serious of the three cases in the premier’s ongoing corruption trial.

In July, Baharav-Miara accused Ben Gvir of factoring political considerations into his decision to block Saban’s promotion, calling his behavior “highly unusual and unprecedented compared to past police promotions.”

She warned in a letter to the far-right minister that his behavior was “not just inappropriate but also an abuse of power,” and demanded that he immediately sign off on Saban’s promotion, as his signature was meant to be a formality and was not intended to grant him actual power over the promotion process.

The High Court of Justice is deliberating on petitions that demand Netanyahu fire Ben Gvir as national security minister.

Baharav-Miara has backed this demand, and at the beginning of January urged the court to force the premier “to explain why he is not removing National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir from his position.”