Israel PM's family receives death threat and bullet in mail

ISRAEL: The family of Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has received a death threat and bullet in the mail for the second time this week, the police said Thursday.

According to an Israeli official familiar with the matter, the target of the threats was Bennett’s 17-year-old son. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Officials have not said who might be behind the threats.

Bennett, who leads a small nationalist party, has come under heavy criticism from Israeli hard-liners who accuse him of abandoning his ideology. In 1995, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish ultranationalist opposed to his peacemaking attempts with the Palestinians. In a nationwide speech marking Israel’s Holocaust memorial day, Bennett lamented the deep polarization in Israeli society as he warned his citizens against letting internal divisions tear society apart.

Bennett’s speech, coming on one of Israel’s most solemn days of the year, came in a deeply personal context. On Tuesday, his family received the first letter with a live bullet and a death threat. Israeli authorities tightened security around the premier and his family and were investigating. That prompted his son oldest son Yoni to write on Instagram how upsetting the episode had been.

– THE HINDUSTAN TIMES