Israel Prisons Chief Commissioner Kobi Yaakobi and Chanamel Dorfman, chief of staff to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, were questioned under caution Sunday by the Department of Internal Police Investigations (DIPI), in connection with an investigation into allegedly deliberate negligence by a senior police officer stationed in the West Bank.
DIPI obtained a conditional arrest order against Dorfman from the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court on Sunday, which it requested since Dorfman had declined to inform police whether he would present himself for questioning when summoned last week.
Because of his refusal to respond to the summons, DIPI officers went on Sunday to Dorfman’s offices in the National Security Ministry, where he told them he would indeed go to the questioning of his own accord.
Dorfman’s lawyer Ariel Atari wrote a strongly worded letter to the head of the DIPI Jerusalem branch, asserting that the conditional arrest order violated a High Court of Justice ruling that suspects cannot be compelled to testify, and said that he had told Dorfman not to cooperate with the investigation as a result.
Yaakobi was questioned for over four hours and Dorfman for two hours, according to reports. They were both summoned for questioning after new information pertinent to the case was gleaned from Dorfman’s phone, which the police had confiscated earlier this year.
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Commander Avishai Muallem, head of the Judea and Samaria Police District’s investigations and intelligence department, is suspected of deliberately failing to conduct proper investigations into Jewish, far-right extremism in the West Bank, in order to curry favor with Ben Gvir.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Israel Prison Service Chief Commissioner Kobi Yaakobi visit a prison in central Israel, January 8, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Dorfman, a long-time close associate of Ben Gvir, is suspected of trying to influence police investigations regarding Jewish extremists in the Judea and Samaria police district, and was in contact with Muallem over such investigations.
Yaakobi is under suspicion for allegedly having informed Muallem that he was a central suspect in the investigation, which would constitute obstruction and breach of trust. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara announced in July that she is considering filing an indictment, subject to a hearing, against Yaakobi, although such an indictment is yet to be served.
Ben Gvir, in response to Sunday’s events, accused Baharav-Miara of “operating DIPI as a private militia for settling scores and stitching up cases in order to eliminate right-wing rule,” and dubbed her “the criminal who has been fired,” in reference to the government’s efforts to remove her from office.
The far-right minister said he gave both Yaakobi and Dorfman his full backing, adding that they were both “exemplary civil servants who are dedicated to the State of Israel.”
Atari said that DIPI had “crossed all lines” in what he labeled “a political investigation” in order to “bring Dorfman to the questioning in total violation of the ruling of the High Court of Justice.”
In a statement to the press, DIPI said only that Yaakobi and Dorfman had been questioned under caution “on suspicion of crimes in the field of ethical conduct” due to “additional findings that recently arose.”
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