An 80-year-old man from central Israel was charged with inciting terrorism via social media posts in which he called for the murder of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The suspect, identified as Amram Agmon from Ness Ziona, was indicted in the Rehovot Magistrate’s Court for a series of Facebook posts made in the wake of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist massacre in Israel’s south, it became known on Sunday.
“Until I see his severed head rolling down the steps of his house on Azza Street, my blood will not cool,” the suspect was said to have written on Oct. 10, 2023, in a posting seen by his close to 4,500 Facebook followers.
A week later, Agmon allegedly published another threatening Facebook post against the prime minister and his wife, Sara Netanyahu: “Who will rise up for us to bring out the bastard and ‘my wife’ to be executed and save the people of Israel from the disaster they are inflicting on us?”
In a subsequent post, the suspect allegedly wrote: “Three weeks and he’s still alive?”
The State Attorney’s Office’s Cyber Department is seeking to convict Agmon with three counts of incitement to terrorism under the Counter-Terrorism Law of 2016 for a total of four Facebook posts. This offense is punishable by up to three years imprisonment.
In July, Israeli Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs presented ministers with a video showing examples of incitement against the premier, in the wake of the attempted assassination of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Netanyahu has faced heated rhetoric against him over the years that has sometimes crossed the line into threats of violence, especially during the 2023 judicial reform debate. Over the past 15 months, the same group of anti-government demonstrators again began demanding his ouster, this time over his management of the war on terror in Gaza.
The video compilation, which was also sent to the media, showed protesters and others calling the prime minister a “traitor,” “Satan” and an “enemy of the people,” among other inflammatory remarks.
