Election panel orders Ben Gvir’s protest video removed and fines him 35,000 shekels

Central Elections Committee chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg, the deputy president of Israel’s Supreme Court, fully accepted a petition by the Movement for Quality Government against National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and ordered the immediate removal of his “flotilla video,” published last month. He also imposed unusually heavy legal costs of 35,000 shekels on Ben Gvir.

The petition targeted a video Ben Gvir posted on May 20, 2026, showing material from the detention compound where flotilla activists were being held. The petitioners argued that the clip amounted to election propaganda and made unlawful use of public assets, in violation of the Elections Law, Campaign Methods.

The Ministry of National Security, the Israel Prisons Service and the Attorney General supported the core claims against the minister. Ben Gvir did not file a response with the committee. Sohlberg said the video was “full of propaganda elements,” adding that the legal review focused only on election-law issues and not on the wide public and international reaction the video drew.

On the merits, Sohlberg said Ben Gvir presented his achievements and political positions in the clip, and that improper use of public property was proven because the video showed police officers and Prison Service personnel in official uniforms alongside a public facility used to hold the flotilla activists. He noted that the petition was filed about two weeks after publication and the clip had been widely shared, but said the passage of time and broad exposure do not excuse enforcement because the committee’s authority is reactive and does not depend on how widely the violation spread. Because this was not the first time Ben Gvir had breached the campaign rules, 10,000 shekels will go to the Movement for Quality Government and 25,000 shekels to the state, represented by the National Security Ministry, the Prisons Service and the Attorney General.