Itamar Ben-Gvir (Hebrew: אִיתָמָר בֶּן גְּבִיר [itaˈmaʁ benˈgviʁ]; born 6 May 1976) is an Israeli far-right politician and lawyer who served as the Minister of National Security from 2022 until 2025.

He is the leader of Otzma Yehudit ('Jewish Power'), a Kahanist and anti-Arab party that won six seats in the 2022 Israeli legislative election, and was part of what is widely regarded as the most right-wing government in Israel's history.

[2][3][4][5] Ben-Gvir is a settler in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, whose "political background lies in Kahanism - a violently racist movement that supports the expulsion of Palestinians from their lands".

[6] He has a long history of anti-Arab activism leading to dozens of indictments and at least eight convictions of crimes including incitement to racism and support for, as well as possession of propaganda of, a terrorist organization (the now illegal political party Kach).

[8] Ben-Gvir is known for being a provocateur and has grabbed headlines for a variety of reasons; threatening Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on live television in 1995 shortly before his assassination, having had a portrait in his living room of Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish extremist terrorist and mass murderer, calling for the expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel who are not loyal to Israel in 2019,[5] inciting violent clashes between Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in 2021, and for making highly controversial visits to the Temple Mount, where the al-Aqsa Mosque is located, in 2023 and 2024.

[9] On 18 January 2025, it was reported that Ben-Gvir intended to resign from his ministerial position in response to the approval and implementation of the three-phase Israel–Hamas war ceasefire deal.

After being acquitted in all three cases on charges including holding an illegal gathering and disturbing a civil servant, Ben-Gvir was allowed to take the exam.

[21][22] As a lawyer, Ben-Gvir has represented a series of far-right Jewish activists suspected of terrorism and hate crimes, some of which are colloquially known as hilltop youth.

[8] Ben-Gvir has also represented Lehava, a far-right Israeli anti-assimilation organization founded by Gopstein which is active in opposing Jewish intermarriage with non-Jews,[23][24] and has sued the Jerusalem Waqf.

[31] Ben-Gvir was in the third seat[32] of a joint list that included Otzma Yehudit, Noam and the Religious Zionist Party that ran in the 2021 Israeli legislative election.

[34] In the 2022 Israeli legislative election, Otzma Yehudit again ran as part of a combined list with the Religious Zionist Party, led by Bezalel Smotrich.

This combined list was strongly encouraged by Benjamin Netanyahu who publicly posted a video address warning against the parties running independently and risking falling below the 3,25% electoral threshold needed to get a seat.

[39] It was reported in late November 2022 that Ben-Gvir would head the newly created National Security Ministry, whose duties would include overseeing the Israel Border Police in the West Bank.

[46][47] On 16 January 2025, Ben-Gvir held a press conference in which he announced his intention to resign as minister and withdraw Otzma Yehudit from the coalition if the government accepted the three-phase ceasefire proposal.

[3] Prior to entering office Ben-Gvir was known to have a portrait in his living room of Israeli-American mass murderer Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers and wounded 125 others in Hebron, in the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre;[51][52] he removed the portrait in preparation for the 2020 Israeli legislative election in hope of being allowed to run on the unified right list headed by Naftali Bennett.

[56] In October 2021, Ben-Gvir and Joint List leader Ayman Odeh had a physical confrontation during a visit to the Kaplan Medical Center to see Miqdad Qawasmeh, a Hamas operative who had been on a hunger strike for over three months of his administrative detention.

Ben-Gvir was against Qawasmeh being treated in an Israeli hospital, and stated that he had visited to check the detainee's conditions, as well as to "see up close this miracle that a person remains alive despite not eating for several months".

[58] In December 2021, Ben-Gvir was investigated after a video surfaced of him pulling a handgun on Arab security guards during a parking dispute in the underground garage of the Expo Tel Aviv conference center.

[63] Ben-Gvir has led several visits to the Temple Mount as an activist and member of Knesset, as well as contentious marches through Jerusalem's Old City Muslim Quarter.

[9] On 3 January 2023, he visited the Temple Mount as national security minister, which prompted a wave of international criticism from the United States, European Union, and Arab countries including Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who characterised his visit as provocative and called on Israel to respect the status quo of holy sites.

This caused wide outrage in Israel as well as internationally, and resulted in contradictory statements made by prime minister Netanyahu's office and Ben-Gvir himself about whether this indicated a formal change in Israeli policy.

[64] At the urging of Jerusalem mayor Moshe Lion, five senior rabbis issued a video statement in Hebrew—with Arabic subtitles—stating that it is strictly forbidden for Jews to enter the compound, and called for calm.

"[70] The Arab community in Israel has seen a significant increase in violence and organized crime, including a rise in gang-related murders in recent years.

[80] The European Union's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has requested that some Israeli ministers be sanctioned by the 27 member states of the bloc for their 'hate messages' towards Palestinians.