Anti-gov’t flare suspect: Reserve officer who encouraged refusals

Reserve officer who held rank of Rear Admiral in the Navy arrested for firing explosive projectile at Netanyahu’s house during demonstration.

By World Israel News Staff

An Israeli court lifted a gag order on the names of the suspects arrested on Sunday for firing flares at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in Caesarea, revealing their names publicly for the first time.

They were named as Itai Yafeh, Amir Sadeh, and Ofer Doron.

Yafeh and Sadeh are longtime leaders in the protest movement against the current government and Netanyahu.

Doron held the rank of Rear Admiral in the Israeli Navy reserves, and was officially suspended from the reserves in August 2023.

The former senior officer, who was responsible for a naval operational center, announced that he would no longer report to reserve duty due to the judicial reform legislation.

In a public statement, Doron said he would refuse to serve “a dictatorship,” and encouraged his fellow reservists to follow suit.

The declaration caused the head of the Israeli Navy, Vice Adm. David Sa’ar Salama, to suspend Doron from the reserves.

Shortly before the October 7th terror onslaught, tensions within Israeli society over the planned changes to the judicial system had reached an all-time high.

Hebrew-language media widely reported that many reservists were refusing to show up for duty due to their opposition to the legislation, but it’s unclear exactly how widespread the phenonmenon actually was.

No data including the numbers of reservists who failed to report for training were released by the military.

One Air Force official said at a conference that reserve pilots who shirked training as an act of political protest ha dnegatively impacted operational readinesss on October 7th.

He was swiftly condemned by senior leadership and forced to retract his comments.

Hamas officials have cited the chaotic anti-judicial overhaul protests, which saw demonstrators illegally block highways, the airprot, and major intesrections across the country, factored into the timing of when to launch the October 7th attack.