Ex-senior cop files complaint alleging current police chief stabbed him in 2020

Former senior Israel Police superintendent Amnon Alkalai has filed a formal complaint with the Police Internal Investigations Department, alleging that now-Commissioner Kobi Shabtai stabbed him in the leg during a meeting of senior police officials in 2020.

Alkalai made the allegation public in August, explaining his decision to resign in light of Shabtai’s later appointment as police chief and asserting that the latter was unfit for the role.

“I knew he had knives, I saw him brandishing the knife, aiming it, move toward my leg, and boom, stab me,” Alkalai told Channel 12 news at the time. “I looked at him and said: ‘Kobi, you stabbed me, my pants are cut, it has actually penetrated — a real stab.’”

“I got up and said: ‘He stabbed me.’ No one understood what I was talking about. I left the room and Kobi ran after me. He apologized, apologized a lot, he was shocked,” Alkalai recounted.

Responding to Alkalai’s interview, the Israel Police claimed that the incident was accidental, occurring when Shabtai was cutting fruit and the knife fell from his hand.

“It seems that Mr. Alkalai decided to do everything in his power to remain in the public eye, even at the cost of harming the police and its leader in this complex period,” Eliram Bakal, Shabtai’s attorney, said in response to Alkalai’s claims.

“After trying to hurt the commissioner with biased testimony at the Meron Commission, and after attempting to hurt the commissioner with a partial presentation of the events of the [military operation] Guardian of the Walls, Mr. Alkalai recently embarked on a round of interviews that culminated, as it turned out today, in reporting on the filing of a complaint over an incident that he says occurred about three years ago,” Bakal added.

At the time of the alleged incident, Shabtai was the commander of the Border Police. His term as police chief, which began in 2021, has been tumultuous.

Shabtai has been partly blamed for the deadly 2021 Mount Meron crush, Israel’s deadliest civilian disaster. Alkalai testified in front of the committee investigating the disaster in its aftermath that Shabtai had rejected his calls to impose crowd limits on the event on Mount Meron, which draws tens of thousands annually.

In addition, Shabtai has conceded that forces under his control were unprepared to deal with the deadly Jewish-Arab violence that engulfed Israel’s mixed cities during the May 2021 fighting between Israel and Gaza terror groups, dubbed by Israel Operation Guardian of the Walls.

“Mr. Alkalai has no explanation as to why he delayed filing the complaint for all these years,” Bakal asserted.

In his August interview, Alkalai gave no motivation for the incident, which he said required him to get stitches in a hospital. He said that he found the incident “embarrassing,” and was only bringing it up now to explain why he later quit the force when Shabtai was appointed.

“I did not leave the police force for personal reasons or [lack of] promotion, but because I thought that the commissioner was not properly managing the police, and even dangerous,” Alkalai said. “I compared it at the time to someone speeding on the highway — that’s how we see the commissioner. Going wild in his behavior, sometimes disasters happened, sometimes near-disasters.”

Shabtai is expected to step down at the end of the year, He has not been offered a fourth year in the position amid repeated clashes with far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who has sought to exert political control over the force.

In a short statement, a spokesperson for the Israeli Police said in response to the complaint that “if necessary, the commissioner will address the complaint through the usual channels.”