Ben Gvir reappointed as police minister as Knesset okays far-right party’s return to posts

Lawmakers vote 65-46 to approve the reappointment of Otzma Yehudit party chairman Itamar Ben Gvir and two other members of his far-right party as members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet.

Ben Gvir returns to his position as national security minister while Amichai Eliyahu again becomes heritage minister and Yitzhak Wasserlauf is reappointed as Negev, Galilee, and national resilience minister.

The reappointment of Ben Gvir, Eliyahu and Wasserlauf required the approval of the cabinet and the ratification of the Knesset, both of which have now been achieved.

“I am returning tonight to manage the National Security Ministry,” Ben Gvir says, boasting of having previously worsened conditions for security prisoners and expanding gun ownership, among other things. “A lot of work lays ahead of us, and I will continue, together with my ministry staff, to implement my policies in the Prison Service and the police.”

Ben Gvir says that his return came after Israel decided to go back to war and he thanks Netanyahu, promising that the pair “will work for the entire people of Israel.”

After the vote, Ben Gvir and Netanyahu embrace.

בן גביר חוזר לממשלה ומקבל חיבוק מביבי pic.twitter.com/yEyg6CP1yZ

— עמיאל ירחי (@amiel_y) March 19, 2025

Otzma Yehudit quit Netanyahu’s coalition in January, following through on its threat to exit if the government agreed to a ceasefire agreement with Hamas that the party dismissed as a “surrender-to-terror deal that crosses all ideological red lines.”

Following Otzma Yehudit’s exit from the coalition, the cabinet approved the temporary appointment of Tourism Minister Haim Katz to the three ministerial positions left vacant by the party. It was widely believed that the reason for making Katz’s appointments temporary was Netanyahu’s desire to signal to Ben Gvir that the portfolios were waiting for him, should he wish to return to the coalition.

Ben Gvir’s announcement yesterday that he agrees to return to the government came only hours after the resumption of military operations in the Gaza Strip, during which the IAF carried out an extensive wave of airstrikes across the coastal territory that targeted mid-level Hamas commanders, members of the terror group’s politburo, and its infrastructure.

“It’s a strange world. A faction resigns from the government because lives are being saved, and the same party returns to the government when they are being abandoned,” says The Democrats party MK Naama Lazimi of the opposition, calling his reappointment “madness.”