Police raise threat level for mayor who decried Gaza ‘atrocities’ in Holocaust day speech; 5 detained

Police have raised the threat level for Hod Hasharon Mayor Amir Kochavi, who used a Holocaust Remembrance Day speech to decry “atrocities” in Gaza, Channel 12 news reports.

Five people have been detained — four of them teenagers — for discussing ways in which they could harm the mayor.

Images of Kochavi that were distorted to make him resemble Nazi leader Adolf Hitler have been circulated on social media, along with the mayor’s phone number.

Kochavi says protests have been held on a daily basis at his home and near his daughter’s school and his wife’s business.

“I was not surprised by the announcement that I had been declared to be under threat, but I was very sorry,” he tells Channel 12. “In Israel in 2025, the demand for morality and the rights of hostages leads to such attacks. This is unacceptable.”

מתחת לבית הפגנה של איש שתיעד את עצמו תולה את הכלב שלו, באינטרנטים גרפיקה של ליצנים ואיומים מוזרים ברצח.

זמנים נפלאים.

תחזירו את החטופים. pic.twitter.com/W1bAwqD7Lp

— amirko (@AmirKochavi) April 26, 2025

In a speech last week, Kochavi declared that “Jewish morality” dictated that Israelis “must not remain silent in the face of atrocities committed against people of other nationalities in the world, even if they are committed in our name.”

Noting that Hamas was still holding 59 hostages in Gaza, Kochavi said that “the lust for revenge, blood and destruction has not brought back to us the dead, nor the living.”