Over the past few weeks, discussions have been taking place within Israel’s political leadership about the state budget for 2025 – during which the Ministry of National Security demanded an astronomical increase of 20 billion shekels ($5.5 billion) for the organizations it operates, primarily the Israel Police. This would represent a huge increase in the police budget which, in 2024, stood at 17 billion shekels ($4.7 billion) out of the ministry’s total budget of 23 billion shekels ($6.3 billion). The Ministry of Finance rejected this outlandish request, and the Ministry of National Security ended up getting an increase of “just” 4 billion shekels ($1.1 billion) to its annual budget. As a result, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir was one of several cabinet members to vote against the budget in the Knesset.

The 2025 police budget is the first one with which the new commissioner, Danny Levy, will have to work with. The new commissioner, who rose rapidly through the ranks of the police in recent years and took over at the helm just three months ago, was only marginally involved in drawing up the targets for increased funding that the police requested. Who, then, was responsible for the request submitted? According to sources within the organization, Ben-Gvir and his people took control of the process.

There is no doubt that, after years of neglect, the Israeli Police suffers from a chronic shortfall in manpower and urgently needs additional resources, in part due to the ongoing war and the proliferation of security missions. But an analysis of the increase that the police requested raises the unavoidable sense that the inflated sum was tossed out without comprehensive planning and without adequate groundwork. More on that below.

Notwithstanding the fact that the government did not approve the increase police sought, officials involved in the matter said in a conversation with Shomrim that many of the items in the proposal are still on the table and there is every chance that they will be approved as part of the political haggling that always accompanies the final vote on the budget in parliament. “Ben-Gvir knows how to play chicken. Netanyahu, as we have already seen, gets spooked by him,” says one police insider. “You shouldn’t be surprised if many of the exaggerated demands that were part of the original budget demands are back on the table.”

Does the plan accurately reflect the real needs of the police at this time, or will the money simply be wasted? Shomrim investigated.

Meet "Unit 65" for Netanyahu's Private Home Security

In May 2024, Levy, who was commander of the police’s Coastal Division at the time, asked then-commissioner Kobi Shabtai to set up a special unit to guard Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence in Caesarea. Reporting for Channel 12 news, Amnon Abramovich claimed that the original plan was to recruit around 30 officers to the unit. The Shin Bet, one of three principal organizations of the Israeli Intelligence Community, according to reports, opposed the plan. Shabtai weighed the proposal but, given the public criticism that it engendered, he decided not to pursue it.

It now appears that the idea of setting up a special unit to operate in Caesarea is back on the table. The proposal for the police budget, now under the command of Levy, includes a clause for what is referred to as Unit 65. Unusually, the proposal did not include an explanation as to the nature and purpose of this new unit. A Shomrim investigation reveals that the unit will encompass no fewer than 40 new positions and it will cost 25 million shekels ($6.9 million) to set up the unit.

Officials involved in the matter claim that it appears that Unit 65 is designed to be a Special Patrol Unit which is supposed to deal with disturbances in the predominantly Arab region of Wadi Ara. In practice, however, the Menashe District already has a sizable Special Patrol Unit, and it is unclear why it needs an additional unit to fulfill an apparently identical role. In fact, in even the most crime-ridden regions of Israel, the police do not have the luxury of such a large contingent of Special Patrol Unit forces.

There is also concern among the police over the purpose of the new unit’s operations. In conversations with Shomrim, they say that they would not be surprised if it turned out that the whole goal of Unit 65 was to provide extra policing close to Netanyahu’s private residence in Caesarea. It is important to note in this context that Levy, as commander of the Coastal Region, was responsible until recently for police conduct during demonstrations outside Netanyahu’s home – at first against the judicial coup and later urging the prime minister to agree to a hostage deal. Levy was known as someone who advocated taking a tough stance against the protestors.

The Israeli Police said in response that the new unit would be called the Romach Unit and that it would be “a divisional unit providing operational responses across the area of the district, including Binyamina, Pardes-Hanna and Karkur, as well as the communities in Wada Ari, in order to help the war on crime in the public arena and for the security of residents.”

The police added that this district was being allocated an additional Special Patrol Unit precisely because of its large geographical size, however, the truth is that the Menashe District is a mid-size region and its top officer only holds the rank of commander, while there are other districts, which are larger and just as complex in operational terms, that do not have the luxury of two Special Patrol Units.

Levy, as commander of the Coastal Region, was responsible until recently for police conduct during demonstrations outside Netanyahu’s home. Levy was known as someone who advocated taking a tough stance against the protestors.

1,200 positions with no groundwork

Against the backdrop of severe public criticism of the police’s resounding failure to tackle crime in Arab society, the organization’s budget demands for 2025 included funding for the establishment of an entirely new unit dedicated to the issue. The only problem was that it wanted to hire 1,200 new officers for the unit – an unheard-of number. For the sake of comparison, the Lahav 433 unit, often referred to as Israel’s crime-fighting umbrella organization within the police, employs a total of 1,000 officers.

The new unit is supposed to be headed by an officer with the rank of deputy commissioner – also a new position – and under him or her there will be an assistant commissioner, four commanders and no fewer than 20 chief superintendents. According to estimates, just setting up this new unit (the temporary name of which is al-Qanun, or ‘the law’ in Arabic) will cost sum of 1.1 billion shekels ($305 million) and the annual cost of operations will be more than 500 million shekels ($138 million).

As inconceivable as it may seem, details of this new unit – which will be massive, and which already appears in the police’s budgetary planning for next year – are quite the mystery even within the police force itself. Sources in the police say that this lack of familiarity stems from the fact that the plan for establishing the new unit was presented to the police by the Ministry of National Security, but various sources in the ministry were also unfamiliar with the plan. In fact, they expressed surprise over the request to set up a new unit, given that there already is a dedicated unit operating in the police to tackle crime in Arab society - the Seif Unit.

Since its establishment in 2021, even before Ben-Gvir took over as minister of national security , the Seif Unit has barely been functional, and the scope of its operations have dwindled over time. “Our people get up in the morning and they do not have anything to do. Everyone knows that there’s no point being here, but they sit around collecting salaries and taking up positions,” says one source who knows the police well. According to this source, even though the Seif Unit has 80 positions in various roles, the officers have no contact with the street, there are no clear regulations when it comes to classified documents and there is no communication with the central units. Lacking intelligence and operational capability, the Seif Unit is fundamentally dysfunctional.

That is not the only problem when it comes to how the apparatus that is supposed to tackle crime in the Arab comunity is managed. Last month, Deputy Commissioner Yoram Sofer informed Levy that he was stepping down from his role as police liaison to the Ministry of National Security on the war on Arab crime. Sofer, a former commander of the Coastal Division, was in the position for 18 months. Sofer’s deputy, Assistant Commissioner Yossi Golan, is also leaving his position – and both of them confirmed in internal discussions that they are frustrated by their inactivity and their lack of authority.

Sofer was replaced as liaison by Assistant Commissioner Yoav Telem, who quickly recognized the problematic nature of the role, which has no actual authority. Telem, who was part of the team that investigated Netanyahu, recently announced that he would be leaving the police.

The police’s proposal, which, as mentioned, was rejected by the treasury, does not include the deletion of the clause funding the Seif Unit, even though it is virtually inactive. “The main thing is that there will be more positions to give to deputy and assistant commissioners, who will become the heads of units, and there will be an inflation in the number of positions,” one officer said.

In response, the Israel Police confirmed that its budgetary demands for 2025 included the establishment of this new unit but added that this was part of a broader plan. “In the framework of the 2025 budget discussions, the police and the Ministry of National Security presented the Ministry of Finance with a comprehensive, innovative, and significant plan to deal with the severe violence and crime in the Arab community, focusing on a multidimensional plan of action. The (one-time) cost of implementing the plan is around 5.5 billion shekels over the next year and around 3 billion shekels a year thereafter. Unfortunately, the Ministry of Finance Refused to allocate these funds, even though the criminal from the Arab sector, which makes up just one fifth of the population of Israel, generates 50 percent of the crime, commits more than 70 percent of the murders, most of the crime offenses and around 95 percent of gun-related crime.

“The plan includes three main elements: the establishment of 32 multifunctional policing centers in 32 communities in the Arab sector across Israel with around 10,000 residents which do not current have a police station, with the goal of making police services more accessible to residents and to create a safe environment by ensuring a prominent presence of police officers. The establishment of a new unit to wage a comprehensive war on crime in Arab society – Hami al-Qanun – which, like Lahav Unit 433, will work continuously and systematically to undermine criminal organizations at all levels, fight criminal organizations with resources, tools, police forces and more, while using innovative enforcement tools against all offenses. Bolstering border protection is part of the implementation of the National Guard plan, which includes strengthening border security, rapid response squads and upgrading the border crossings from Judea and Samaria. Unless those responsible for doing so allocate the necessary resources and budgets, it will not be possible to deal in any significant way with crime in Arab society and we will not be able to bring about any real or profound change.”

Officials who are familiar with the police’s budgetary demands, describe some of them as “absurd and unworkable” from almost every perspective and claim that they found those demands hard even to evaluate.

A monstrous Special Patrol Unit in the south

Most of the plans which appear in the police’s request for funding were drawn up during the tenure of the previous commissioner, Kobi Shabtai. One of them was the establishment of a new unit in southern Israel. The unit, to be known as Sahar, was mentioned in the previous budget and was announced in June 2023. In other words, it was included in the 2024 budget but money for the bulk of the recruitment of officers and purchase of equipment was only allocated in 2025.

According to the unit’s emblem, the name Sahar is an acronym, in Hebrew, for “public order, defense and sovereignty.” Alongside the name is a quote from the bible. The unit is expected to contain the two existing Special Patrol Units in the Southern District, which are mainly occupied with the war on crime in the Bedouin community, alongside other professionals.

In addition, according to the police’s plan, there will be 100 positions for newly hired police officers. In terms of senior officers, a new commander will have to be hired within the Southern District, as well as several chief superintendents. This raises many questions: Does the Southern District of the police need a unit that is larger than any unit in the Tel Aviv, Central or Northern Districts, which is where most of the major crime in the Arab sector takes place?

Moreover, the role defined for the Sahar Unit is very similar to that of the southern branch of the National Guard that Ben-Gvir is trying to establish. Is the Sahar Unit actually nothing more than the cornerstone of this controversial National Guard? The answer is unclear, but even within police ranks, many are asking similar questions.

The police’s Southern District also wants to set up an additional central investigations unit – the third in total. Currently, each police district has one central investigations unit, apart from the Southern District, which already has two – one in the Lakhish region and one in the Negev – since the district is spread out over a wide geographical area. Now police want a third central investigations unit – for the whole district – which will encompass the two existing ones. In practice, this will create more positions, especially for high-ranking officers and staff officers.

‘Absurd and unworkable’

Officials who are familiar with the police’s budgetary demands, describe some of them as “absurd and unworkable” from almost every perspective and claim that they found those demands hard even to evaluate. According to these officials, the police refused to share certain statistical data which the Ministry of Finance had requested in order to examine how the previous budget had been spent and to compare it with the new demands.

These officials say that the manpower demands of the police are just one example of this. They say that the police demanded 10,000 new positions in the 2025 budget, in addition to 3,000 new positions in the Israeli Prison Service. These demands seem to be detached from reality, not only the fiscal reality but also the reality that the police find it hard to recruit enough new officers to cover their routine requirements. For example, after the 2024 budget was passed, Ben-Gvir bragged about additional funding to the tune of 9 billion shekels ($2.5 billion), but even with this funding the police was unable to meet its recruitment targets; estimates say that this is around 3,000 position, most of which moved to the National Guard and the Border Police, and not to the Israel Police, which remains woefully unstaffed. The police’s demands also include the establishment of 32 “multidimensional centers.”

Independent of the Southern District, the police’s budgetary demands also include the establishment of no fewer than 32 more “multidimensional centers” – a euphemistic way of referring to police stations. Here, too, it appears that no groundwork was done to map the need for these centers or to plan how best to set them up.

The Israeli Police submitted the following response: “It would be more appropriate to welcome the offensive operational plan to tackle the severe problem of crime and to provide optimal service and security to all residents of the south, while expanding and improving the range of abilities and resources in order to provide an answer to the phenomenon of serious crimes like extortion, polygamy, organized crime and bloody feuds. The addition of positions and new officers, and the expansion of our operational capabilities, are a precondition for providing security, protection, and service to citizens.”

The Ministry of National Security, for its part, submitted the following response: “Contrary to claim, police chief Levy and his team are full partners in the financial discussions. In addition, there has been a rise of more than 20 percent in the number of weapons seized compared to 2023 – and this year is still not over. In addition, there has been a marked increase in the confiscation of guns in particular.

“Levy participated in all the budget discussions with the Finance Ministry and presented the organization’s various needs. The framework for the budgetary demands of the National Security Ministry for 2025 also included the establishment of dedicated units to tackle crime in the Arab sector. The Seif Unit that was established and staffed in 2021 was an umbrella body and not an operational unit, so your question is unclear.

“The groundwork for the establishment of the new unit was drawn up within the Israeli Police by the Investigations Division, the coordinator for the war on Arab crime, the Operations Directorate, and the Planning Division, in cooperation with the relevant professional bodies in the Ministry of National Security.

“The Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, worked and continues to work to strengthen governance and to stamp out crime in Arab society.”