Otzma Yehudit Party leader Itamar Ben-Gvir returned to the Israeli National Security Ministry on Wednesday night, an hour after the Knesset voted to re-admit his faction to the coalition government.
“We’re coming back with all our might!” Ben-Gvir wrote on X after a majority of Knesset members voted to re-appoint him, as well as fellow Otzma Yehudit faction members Yitzhak Wasserlauf (Ministry for the Development of the Periphery, the Negev and the Galilee) and Amichai Eliyahu (Ministry of Heritage).
Ben-Gvir, Wasserlauf and Eliyahu resigned on Jan. 21 in protest of the ceasefire and hostage release deal with Gaza’s Hamas terror group.
On Tuesday, just hours after the truce collapsed and the Israel Defense Forces resumed military operations in the Strip, Otzma Yehudit reached an agreement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party to return to government and their previously-held ministerial positions.
Ben-Gvir welcomed the resumption of hostilities with Hamas, saying in a statement on Tuesday, “As we said in recent months when we resigned: Israel must return to fighting in the Gaza Strip. This is the right, moral, ethical and most justified step—to destroy the Hamas terror group and bring back our hostages. We must not accept the existence of the Hamas organization, and it must be dismantled.”
On Thursday morning, Ben-Gvir participated in the weekly situational assessment at the Ministry of National Security, his office announced.
“From the beginning of our journey here, we promised governance,” Ben-Gvir said in a statement, reiterating his campaign vow to restore the state’s authority. “There are many places where I see wonderful work and governance slowly returning. There are still places where we need to improve and increase—and with God’s help, we will succeed.”
Ben-Gvir’s return as national security minister was opposed by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara who had claimed it was illegal to reappoint him amid a Supreme Court case seeking his dismissal due to alleged misconduct as the minister overseeing the police before he quit.
In Israel, the attorney general does not work for the prime minister, as opposed to in the U.S., where the AG is an agent of the executive branch. Netanyahu and other ministers have often clashed with Baharav-Miara, who was appointed in 2022 by the government led by then-premier Naftali Bennett.
In November, Baharav-Miara told Netanyahu he had “one last chance” to fire Ben-Gvir or risk a Supreme Court ruling ordering him to do so.
Baharav-Miara and other officials in the Attorney General’s Office have said that Ben-Gvir broke Israeli law and exceeded his powers as police minister by meddling in law enforcement and delivering direct orders to officers, which would also violate court injunctions banning him from doing so, in particular when it came to anti-government protests.
According to local reports, Netanyahu told fellow ministers at a Cabinet meeting on Nov. 10 that he would refuse to dismiss Ben-Gvir, saying that Baharav-Miara’s demand could pave the way for a “constitutional crisis.”
