Benny Gantz says ‘there is no governance’ after Bnei Brak violence

By Sam Sokol 16 February 2026, 3:46 pm

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Blue and White Party chief MK Benny Gantz leads a faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, February 16, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The state has abandoned its responsibilities and “there is no governance,” Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz charges, following yesterday’s ultra-Orthodox riot in Bnei Brak and this morning’s double murder in the Arab city of Umm al-Fahm.

“Yesterday in Bnei Brak the extremists defeated the state. There is no police presence in the streets. The district commander asks why the entry of female soldiers into the street wasn’t coordinated with him? Heaven forbid Bnei Brak should become ‘Area A.’ Have we lost our minds? Who is in charge here?” Gantz tells reporters ahead of his party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset.

“This morning in Umm al-Fahm, two people were shot dead on the road. Fifty people have been murdered in the Arab community in a month and a half. There is no law and no judge. After the record for murders in the Arab community was broken last year no one was held accountable,” Gantz adds, pledging to establish a government after the next elections that “isn’t afraid to send police into Bnei Brak” and “will back the IDF, those who serve, and the residents of the Negev and the Galilee.”