Smotrich Ally Yehudah Eliyahu Appointed Head of Israel Land Authority

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Housing Minister Haim Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich signed off Monday on the appointment of Yehuda Eliyahu as the new director of the Israel Land Authority, despite objections from senior legal officials.

Eliyahu currently heads the Settlement Administration in the Defense Ministry. He will replace Yanki Quint, who stepped down at the end of 2025. The ILA has been without a permanent director for five months.

The authority is one of the most powerful public bodies in Israel’s housing and development system. It manages roughly 92% of the country’s land, controls a budget worth tens of billions of shekels, and is responsible for marketing land to developers for the construction of hundreds of thousands of housing units.

Netanyahu said he was confident Eliyahu would bring “important changes” to the ILA, cut bureaucracy and work to allocate land to IDF veterans and reservists. Supporters of the appointment also expect Eliyahu to focus on lowering housing prices by speeding up land marketing, reducing delays and increasing the supply of land available for construction. Since the ILA plays a central role in Israel’s housing market, backers argue that changes inside the authority could help ease pressure on homebuyers.

The appointment was promoted by Smotrich, who has known Eliyahu for around three decades. The two were among the founders of the Harasha community, helped establish the Regavim organization, and later worked together as Smotrich expanded civilian authority over Judea and Samaria through the Settlement Administration.

The move was approved despite opposition from Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon, who determined that Eliyahu’s appointment was legally barred because of his close ties to Smotrich. The search committee’s legal adviser, Efrat Prokacija, also warned of a substantial legal difficulty with the appointment.

The legal objections centered on whether Eliyahu had the special qualifications required to justify appointing someone with such a close connection to one of the ministers involved in the process. Legal officials were reportedly not convinced that standard had been met.

Eliyahu was chosen over several candidates with extensive experience in housing, land administration and public sector management, including former Housing Ministry director-general Benny Dreyfus, ILA land protection division head Shira Tam and Tekuma Administration official Nir Masika.

The government said Eliyahu received the highest professional ranking from the search committee and was the right person to lead the authority in the coming years.