Elections panel chief orders Ben Gvir to take down video where he tells jailed terrorist, ‘I want to kill you’

By Noam Lehmann 1 October 2026, 9:36 pm

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National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir seen berating Hassan Salamah, a Hamas terrorist jailed for orchestrating a pair of 1996 Jerusalem bus explosions that killed 45 people, in a video posted to social media on September 27, 2026. (Screenshots/Itamar Ben Gvir via X)

Central Elections Committee chief Noam Sohlberg orders National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to remove a video in which the minister, flanked by armed prison guards, says to senior Hamas inmate Hassan Salamah, “I want to kill you.”

Salamah is responsible for a pair of 1996 Jerusalem bus bombings that killed 45 people.

Sohlberg, who is also the deputy president of the Supreme Court, finds in favor of petitioners from two NGOs — Choosing Israel, which advocates for transparency, and the Committee Against Torture — that Ben Gvir “took advantage of his position to produce an election campaign video.”

“Other candidates — and, it seems, other ministers — don’t have the same access to prisons, inmates and jailers. Minister Ben Gvir has the advantage of access to these public assets, and has taken full advantage of it,” Sohlberg says.

Ben Gvir is ordered to take the video down from all social media platforms and to pay a NIS 10,000 ($3,240) fine. Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit is ordered to pay an additional NIS 10,000 fine.

The minister has repeatedly been ordered to remove videos under similar circumstances.