Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will ask the cabinet on Wednesday to approve Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar as interior minister, Likud announced Tuesday. The appointment fills a post that has been vacant for more than a year.
According to Likud’s statement, Netanyahu first offered the job to MK Ofir Katz, the coalition whip and one of his closest allies. Katz turned it down “in order to coordinate the moves of the right-wing bloc in the Knesset during this period.”
Sa’ar will keep his role as foreign minister. He served as interior minister from 2013 to 2014 under Netanyahu.
The Interior Ministry has had no minister since Shas’s Moshe Arbel resigned in July 2025, and in the meantime, dozens of the minister’s powers were transferred to Netanyahu. Some authorities that the law grants only to the interior minister could not be exercised at all. In August, under pressure from the High Court of Justice, Netanyahu agreed to appoint a minister. Until now, the appointment had not been made.
Because the current government is a transitional one, Sa’ar’s appointment does not require Knesset approval. It will likely be temporary and could end if a new government is formed.
The move comes on the day the 26th Knesset is sworn in, at a politically charged moment. President Isaac Herzog has given Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot the mandate to form the next government. Netanyahu is working to stop that from happening, including by trying to keep the chareidi parties from joining an alternative coalition.
