Netanyahu makes statement on IDF reservist mutiny threat, after source comments

Minutes after Hebrew media publishes a quote from a senior official slamming his “deafening silence” on the matter, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu releases a statement apparently referring to a video shared online — including by his son Yair Netanyahu — showing a masked reservist threatening mutiny if the government doesn’t pursue what he defined as “complete victory” over Hamas.

“The prime minister has warned many times about the dangers of the phenomenon of insubordination and the permissive attitude towards it,” the PMO statement reads.

Without directly referring to either the video or his son, the statement adds that Netanyahu has been “consistent” in his position on military refusal and that he “rejects outright any refusal from any side.”

The prime minister expects “all systems to treat [those who refuse] equally.”

Netanyahu made similar statements against “insubordination” when hundreds of elite reservists stopped volunteering in early 2023 in protest of his government’s plans to upend the judicial system.

The senior source quoted by Channel 12 a short while ago had said that  Yair Netanyahu’s sharing of the video is “a clear call for rebellion against the IDF command.”

“The prime minister in his deafening silence, hour upon hour, backs up this grave act,” the source was quoted as saying.

In the video, first shared on social media by far-right journalist Yinon Magal and later republished by Yair Netanyahu,  a masked reservist soldier demands that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant quit and threatens to defy orders if the government doesn’t pursue “complete victory” over Hamas.