At police memorial, Ben Gvir says October 7 massacre was both ‘sad moment’ and ‘great opportunity’

Speaking at the police’s Memorial Day ceremony on Mount Herzl, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir says October 7 presented a “great opportunity” to alter Israel’s security stance.

“October 7 was a moment of trial, a very sad moment, [but] also a moment of great opportunity to change the ‘conception,'” he says, adding the Hamas-led massacre was a chance to “reestablish deterrence and the standing of the IDF, police and the Prison Service, and of Israel as a superpower.”

“Some of these opportunities we have embraced with both arms,” he adds. “I am proud that we have an army, Mossad, and Shin Bet that assassinated Sinwar, Nasrallah, Khamenei, and other tens of thousands of bloody murderers.”

He tells the crowd in Jerusalem, composed of police brass and bereaved relatives of slain officers, that he strives to be “worthy” of security forces through the laws he has passed as part of the right-wing ruling coalition.

This worthiness is realized “whenever we go out into the field, in every law passed, every time we give backing to our officers, our warriors,” he says.

Ben Gvir is currently embroiled in a legal battle concerning his alleged interference in police matters. The High Court of Justice last week heard several petitions demanding his dismissal, which claim that the “backing” he provides police officers, especially those under criminal investigation, serves his political agenda and is liable to erode law enforcement’s restraint.

Ben Gvir further references Israel’s Prison Service, boasting that the security agency has “completely changed its previous worldview.”

“Today the summer camps have been stopped, there is order in the prisons, there is governance, there is determination, there is sovereignty,” he declares, referring to the worsening conditions of Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails.

He leaves the ceremony early with his aide Hanamel Dorfman and the rest of his entourage before senior law enforcement officials go up to lay wreaths in memory of the fallen.