Likud MK brought in for questioning by police over sex offense allegations

Likud lawmaker Hanoch Milwidsky was summoned for questioning Friday morning by police investigators, reportedly on suspicion that he committed sexual offenses.

The Israel Police’s Lahav 433 major crimes unit went public with the probe as investigators took testimony from several people involved in the case, including Milwidsky, who was questioned as a suspect.

Milwidsky has faced multiple accusations in the past of sexual assault, but has not to date faced any charges.

Police declined to name Milwidsky or the allegations against him in an oblique statement later Friday morning, announcing they had summoned a sitting lawmaker for questioning.

Officers detained two others involved in the case for questioning, both on suspicion of obstruction of justice. These offenses were thought to have been committed before Milwidsky was elected to the Knesset, law enforcement noted in the statement.

According to police, investigators opened the covert investigation in 2022 and summoned the lawmaker once they had established reasonable suspicion against him.

Milwidsky said in a statement that he had heeded the summons and showed up to be questioned by police, but accused law enforcement of persecuting right-wing politicians.

“Political persecution has crossed all boundaries. The attorney general and the system she heads continue to trample democracy with a heavy hand and destroy the public’s trust,” his office says in a statement. “I will continue to act fearlessly for the goals of the right and for the entire nation.”

The Likud MK was this week backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to replace United Torah Judaism MK Moshe Gafni as head of the powerful Knesset Finance Committee, after the Haredi party exited the government and the coalition. Milwidsky purported that law enforcement was trying to capitalize on that timing.

Milwidsky had initiated the ouster of Yuli Edelstein as chair of the Knesset’s most powerful committee, the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, which provides parliamentary oversight of Israel’s security establishment, and sought in vain to replace Edelstein.

Before he entered the Knesset on the Likud’s slate in 2022, an anonymous woman alleged that Milwidsky sexually assaulted her in her home eight years before that — in 2014. In a Channel 12 interview, she claimed the politician had groped her at the end of a professional meeting.

She had been working as a content consultant for companies and businesspeople at the time, and Milwidsky came to her home as a client. When she walked him to the door, he suddenly grabbed her in a sexual manner, she said.

“He didn’t even flirt with me, didn’t say a thing. He just attacked me,” she recalled. “He grabbed my hands, my entire body.” She said the assault finally ceased after she threatened to bite his neck and told him he would be forced to explain the resulting mark to his wife.

Milwidsky has denied the accusations.

In September 2024, an anonymous emailer sent several Knesset offices a nude photo supposedly of Milwidsky, paired with online sexual correspondences linked to him.

The MK insisted the photo was fabricated and said the email was part of a defamatory, deceitful campaign against him, and filed a police complaint.

The investigation hit a dead end, Haaretz reported, as the email with the photo was removed from the Knesset’s servers after one of the recipients notified the IT department, which subsequently deleted it.