Man indicted for leaving threatening letter to Netanyahu on grave of PM’s brother
Prosecutors say Kfar Saba resident, 26, demanded PM secure release of body of Hadar Goldin, the suspect’s youth group counselor; suspect says he ‘escaped’ mental health institution
A man was indicted Thursday for writing a threatening letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and placing it on the grave of the premier’s brother, Yoni Netanyahu, in Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl military cemetery.
A 26-year-old resident of Kfar Saba, who remained unnamed in the indictment, was accused of writing the letter, which demanded that Netanyahu reconquer the Gaza Strip and secure the release of the body of captured soldier Hadar Goldin and other Israeli hostages held there by Hamas.
The indictment noted that Goldin had been a youth movement counselor to the accused man.
During a hearing on the extension of his custody last week, prosecutors said the suspect’s actions could have harmed the public and caused damage to democracy.
The accused man said that he had recently “escaped” from the Shalvata Mental Health Center, and his defense lawyer, Binyamin Malka, stressed in the hearing that his client had been diagnosed with mental health issues, the Walla news site reported.
According to the indictment, the accused watched a June 29 television report showing Goldin’s sister Ayelet accosting the prime minister at at a state memorial service for fallen soldiers in the 2014 Gaza operation and decrying his failure to secure the release of her brother’s body.
מכתב האיום שהונח על קברו של יוני נתניהו | לידיעה המלאה >> https://t.co/AFSpAFZqu7@SuleimanMas1 pic.twitter.com/ccWS4RdQS2
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) June 30, 2023
The accused then decided to write the letter, checking Netanyahu’s age and the location of his brother’s grave.
In the early hours of June 30, the accused went to the Mount Herzl military cemetery and placed the letter there.
Though much of the handwritten letter is addressed to the late Yoni Netanyahu, prosecutors said that the accused intended for the words to reach the prime minister.
“What’s happening Yoni, you hero? What’s going on up there?” the letter read.
“I was asked to inform your brother, Pee-Pee Netanyahu, that he has a little or a lot going for him, but it’s over,” the note continues, in an apparent jibe at the prime minister’s nickname “Bibi.”
“From here, Mt. Herzl, this sanctified place, the clock is ticking backward, until [October 13-14 when] your brother, the son of a bitch, thinks he’ll reach age 74,” the letter said referencing the prime minister’s birthday according to the Hebrew calendar.
The letter goes on to say “let it be clear that this is a threat of the first order,” next to which “red alert level” is written in English accompanied by a smiley face.
“Bibi, you’re no better than [Ariel] Sharon,” the writer added, expressing a wish for Netanyahu to suffer a fate worse than the former premier, who died in 2014 after eight years in a vegetative state following a massive stroke.
After lobbing further invectives against Netanyahu, the writer stated the premier has several missions including reconquering the Gaza Strip and returning “the body of my counselor, Hadar Goldin, and the rest of the captives.”
“Fuck you, you lazy whore,” the letter concluded in English.
איילת גולדין התפרצה לעבר ראש הממשלה נתניהו בסיום הטקס: ״תסתכל לי בעיניים לאחות שכולה תשע שנים. אל תפנה לי גב. מה יש לי בקבר ציצית מגואלת בדם? pic.twitter.com/xlScOXcE1m
— Haim Goldich | חיים גולדיטש (@HGoldich) June 29, 2023
The Hamas terror group, which conquered Gaza two years after Sharon carried out a full military and civilian withdrawal from the enclave in 2005, is holding the bodies of Goldin and Oron Shaul — both of whom were killed fighting in the 2014 Gaza war — along with two living Israelis believed to have entered the Strip on their own accord.
The threatening letter came less than a week after Netanyahu and his family visited the grave to mark the 47th anniversary of Yoni Netanyahu’s death leading an elite IDF force in the Entebbe hostage rescue.
The July 4, 1976, operation saw the rescue of 98 hostages taken captive the previous week by Palestinian and German terrorists who hijacked an Air France jet flying from Tel Aviv to Paris. The plane was diverted to Uganda, where the hijackers were welcomed by dictator Idi Amin.
Four hostages were killed during the operation, along with Yoni Netanyahu.
Netanyahu has received several death threats in recent months, most of them connected to his hardline government’s controversial judicial overhaul legislation.
