Al-Jazeera correspondent in Jerusalem reported that the Israeli security authorities tightened security around Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and his family after receiving a letter threatening to kill them, inside an envelope containing a live bullet.
The Shin Bet and the Israeli police imposed a strict ban on publishing the details of this threat, while the investigation task was entrusted to the Major Crimes Investigation Department, "Lahav 433" and the Shin Bet, who described the incident as "disturbing."
And the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper's website reported that the secret investigations were launched after the threatening message reached the prime minister's wife in the city of Ra'anana, north of Tel Aviv, where his family resides, and included an explicit threat to kill her and their son Yoni.
Bennett sent a message to the public calling for restraint, cessation of incitement and violence and respect for difference, while Defense Minister Benny Gantz warned that similar threats had led in the past to the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a far-right activist (in November 1995). .
"The political conflict, no matter how deep, should not reach violence and death threats," Bennett said - in tweets on his Twitter account.
"We need to do everything, as leaders and as citizens, for their future and the future of their children in this country, so that there are simply no such phenomena...no to bullying and threats," he added.
"I am a prime minister and a politician but I am also a husband and a father and I also have a duty to protect my wife and children. We must lower the flames of political discourse. I call on everyone, across the political spectrum and especially people active on social media, to calm down and reconcile. We have one home and must Don't burn it."
As for Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, he considered that the threat to target the Prime Minister and his family members brings back a tragic and dangerous memory.
The threat to kill the Bennett family comes against the backdrop of heightened tension between his ruling coalition and the fascist right-wing parties led by the opposition leader, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which is working to bring down his government and establish an alternative government.
It is noteworthy that this is not the first time that Bennett has been subjected to threats of death and physical harm, as last August an indictment was filed against a 45-year-old extremist man from the “Kiryat Gat” settlement (south) who called the police station and threatened to harm Bennett, and confessed Later he was already planning on it.
The police had also previously arrested another Israeli from the south of the country, who threatened Bennett, in a comment on the latter's post on a social networking site, to burn down his house, describing him as a "dictator."
Naftali Bennett, head of the right-wing Yamina party, has been prime minister since June 13, 2021, after he managed to bring the curtain down on the 12 continuous years that his predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu, head of the Likud party, spent in office.