Senior military officer in the reserves is among those expected to face charges for arson, explosive use.
By World Israel News Staff
Three anti-government protesters were arrested after they fired multiple flares at the private home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Caesarea on Saturday evening.
One of those arrested is a senior military officer in the reserves, according to Hebrew-language media reports.
In a statement, the Shin Bet internal security agency identified the officer as a prominent “leader” of the weekly protests in front of Netanyahu’s residence.
Security footage from the scene showed one of the flares crashing to the ground on Netanyahu’s property, sparking a fire.
The Netanyahu family was not home at the time of the incident, and no one was injured.
The three suspects are expected to expect criminal charges including arson with the intent to harm, intentional damage with explosive material, and illegal release of explosive material.
Attorney Gonen Ben Itzhak, who has long been a leader in the anti-government movement, claimed that the severity of the incident was exaggerated and that those arrested are political prisoners.
“This is a minor incident that is being overblown,” Ben Itzhak said on his X account.
He then claimed that the arrests were part of a “witch hunt” targeting those who had only “fired flares in the air.”
Notably, Ben Itzhak did not acknowledge that the flares had started a blaze on Netanyahu’s property, nor did he state that firing flares at the premier’s home was wrong.
“Good morning to the Bibi-stan dictatorship,” he added, using the prime minister’s nickname.
An organization advocating for anti-government protesters who are arrested decried the Shin Bet’s involvement in the investigation into the incident.
“No one should be surprised that the current regime is dragging prominent protest activists to Shin Bet investigations,” the Arrestee’s Support Network said in a statement.
“This is a protest event in which normal pyrotechnics were used and the claims that the Prime Minister’s house or anyone from the Prime Minister’s surroundings were some kind of target are a crazy and ugly blood libel,” the organization claimed.
According to Hebrew-language reports, it’s believed that the flares were fired from sand dunes on the beach behind Netanyahu’s house – rather than from the protest in front of the home.