Ben-Gvir fury after police contradict claim that protesters plan to ‘murder’ him

He also claimed that the demonstration last week outside a Tel Aviv hairdresser’s — inside which Sara Netanyahu was having her hair done — was “an attempted lynching,” citing further “intelligence material” he received on the matter.

But a senior police officer told the broadcaster that he was unaware of any such intelligence relating to potential political murder.

In response, Ben-Gvir then tweeted that he was “shocked” that police sources would contradict him and vowed to “wipe clean any politicisation from professional police work.”

The politician’s remarks were ill-received by opposition leaders. Citing the fact that Ben-Gvir was exempted from army service because of his extremist views, the National Unity party leader Benny Gantz said: “A person [Ben-Gvir] who was involved in [Jewish] terror instead of being drafted into the army is delegitimising patriotic protesters. Ben-Gvir and the inciters are the fuel for [military service] refusal.”

On Sunday, the IDF chief of staff, Major-General Herzl Halevi, told Prime Minister Netanyahu of his concern at the growing threat of reservist walkouts because of the government’s proposed judicial reform. And on Monday, all 10 living former commanders of the Israeli Air Force called on the prime minister to halt the judicial overhaul, calling the process “a severe and concrete danger to national security”.

Thirty-seven of the 40 reserve pilots in a major air force squadron have said they will not report for training later this week.

Not mincing his words, opposition leader Yair Lapid called Ben-Gvir a liar and a “clown,” accusing him of “inventing ‘intelligence materials’ that do not exist. This is not only ridiculous, but it is also dangerous”.