Netanyahu pleads for state to keep guarding his family, citing ‘clear threat’

Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said he plans to file a police complaint over alleged threats he recently received, as the high-level protection of his family members is set to expire next week.

“Do not abandon the security of my wife and children,” Netanyahu pleaded in a video shared on social media.

The state-provided protection of his family is due to end Monday, six months after he was voted out of office as prime minister. Netanyahu is himself entitled to protection for 20 years after leaving the Prime Minister’s Residence.

The former premier cited a Facebook post by the Crime Minister political movement, which had sought to oust him from office. The post said: “This coming Monday, security will be removed from Sara Netanyahu and her two sons. Expect surprises?”

“There is a clear threat here… including writing the explicit date on which security will be removed and there will be an opportunity to harm them,” Netanyahu said.

The post was later edited.

“Do you think there will be surprises in the decision?” the updated post said, referring to the decision to end his security.

Still, Netanyahu said he would submit a complaint to police over the post.

A member of Netanyahu’s family also called Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and asked him to push for an extension of the high-level protection, Channel 12 news reported Friday.

The network did not specify which of the Netanyahus phoned Lapid.

Netanyahu has previously faced criticism for his reluctance to give up the trappings of office after being voted out after more than a decade in power.

It took Netanyahu over than a month, and the threat of a High Court intervention, to get him to move out of the Prime Minister’s Residence.

Nevertheless, there have been threats against him and his family.

Last week, a man was indicted for harassment over a tweet in which he graphically threatened to sexually assault Sara Netanyahu.

Boaz Drori, a 55-year-old resident of the central city of Givatayim, was charged at the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court over the tweet he posted in 2019.

In the tweet, Drori, who had around 1,000 followers on Twitter, described a sexual act that he would perform because he was “so patriotic,” effectively threatening to rape the then-prime minister’s wife for the sake of the nation.

In August 2020, after Drori was first questioned, the then-prime minister wrote to Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, accusing him of “scandalously” ignoring threats against him and his family, and claiming he was putting them at risk as a result.

Meanwhile, a number of members of the current cabinet, as well as officials involved in Netanyahu’s ongoing graft trial, have extra security due to threats against them and their relatives.