Court orders Ben Gvir to allow promotion of officer who testified against Netanyahu

The Jerusalem District Court ruled Monday that National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir must sign off on the promotion of Supt. Rinat Saban, an Israel Police detective whose advancement he has been blocking after she testified in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial.

Judge David Gidoni wrote in his ruling that the far-right minister’s ongoing refusal to promote Saban is “flawed by extreme irrationality” and stressed “real concern about the existence of extraneous considerations” underlying his decision.

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

Summarizing his 36-page ruling, Gidoni said there is cause to believe Ben Gvir blocked Saban’s promotion based on “improper considerations due to the petitioner’s [Saban’s] involvement in investigations of the prime minister and his advisers.”

He ordered the minister to immediately approve the detective’s promotion, noting that “any additional delay may intensify the concern of harm to police independence.”

However, Ben Gvir announced that he planned to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court, in a statement decrying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trial as “illegal” — appearing to confirm his underlying motives for stonewalling Saban’s promotion.

The court’s argument “that the minister is forbidden from considering Saban’s involvement in the illegal investigations of the Prime Minister’s Office in itself [points to] ‘extraneous considerations,'” he said.

“In a proper country, an investigator who partakes in an illegal investigation should finish her police service rather than receive protection from Yitzhak Amit and his envoys,” he continued, referring to the Supreme Court’s president.

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.

Israel Police Commissioner Danny Levy had 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.

Saban, who serves as an assistant to Deputy Commissioner Boaz Blatt in police’s investigations and intelligence division, accused Ben Gvir last month of threatening her and other officers’ careers if they get involved in certain cases that damage his political prospects.

“Is there a threat here, minister?” she asked Ben Gvir during the case’s first hearing, according to Walla. “This is a heavy personal price that I am paying here.”

Ben Gvir is also involved in impeding the promotion of another high-ranking female police detective, Ch. Supt. Ruti Hauslich, who reportedly expressed positions contrary to those of Ben Gvir in several discussions.

The chief superintendent has a sensitive role in police’s investigations and intelligence division in which she exercises considerable discretion over whether or not to launch investigations into suspected incitement offenses.

On Sunday, the Attorney General’s Office sent a letter to Ben Gvir urging him to stop behaving like the “super commissioner” of police and sign off on Hauslich’s promotion.

Ben Gvir shrugged off the letter in a post to X: “I heard you, Gali. Your advice was not accepted. We are pressing on with full force,” referring to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.