Kobi Shabtai

Shabtai was born in Ashkelon to a family that had immigrated from Iraq in the 1950s.[1] At the time of his appointment as commissioner in 2021, he was 56 and lived in Karkur.[1]

He served in the Israel Defense Forces’ Paratroopers Brigade as a company commander and left military service in 1987 with the rank of captain.[1][7] He holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in education.[4]

Shabtai joined the Israel Police in 1991, entering the Border Police’s Yamam counterterrorism unit.[1] In 1992, he became commander and one of the founders of an undercover unit operating in the Gaza Strip.[1] His operational background also included service as a Yamas operator in undercover counterterrorism.[8]

In July 1994, while commanding the Gaza undercover unit during disturbances near the Erez crossing, Shabtai was shot while attempting to rescue a civilian caught in the area.[1] After receiving medical treatment, he returned to the scene.[1] His actions earned him the Israel Police Medal of Distinguished Service, awarded in 1995.[1][4]

After commanding the Border Police counterterrorism school, Shabtai established Barak, a Tel Aviv district crime-fighting unit.[1] In 2001, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and appointed commander of the Border Police in Bethlehem, where he was wounded again in a clash with terrorists.[1] He became operations officer for the Border Police’s Northern District in 2002 and was wounded by gunfire during a pursuit of terrorists.[1] He received the police Medal of Courage in 2004.[4]

His subsequent appointments included police-station command, leadership of two precincts and service as deputy commissioner of the Border Police.[7][8] He took command of the Border Police in February 2016.[4] When selected for the commissionership, he had not served as a district commissioner, a position normally regarded as a prerequisite for candidates.[9][10]

In December 2020, Public Security Minister Amir Ohana selected Shabtai as his candidate for police commissioner, subject to senior-appointments review by the Goldberg Committee and government approval.[4] The other finalists were Yoram Halevy and Jerusalem District commander Doron Yedid.[4] Shabtai became acting police chief at the beginning of January 2021, and the cabinet approved his permanent appointment on January 17 for a three-year term, with a possible one-year extension under special circumstances.[1][11] He was promoted to commissioner-general, or rav-nitzav, ending a period of more than two years without a permanent commissioner.[11]

On taking office, Shabtai identified serious crime, road safety and violence in Arab communities as priorities, and said he wanted officers to regain public appreciation.[12] He began without a handover; his first months involved the COVID-19 crisis, demonstrations, rising violence in Arab society and conflict among criminal organizations.[13] In 2022, the Israel Police remained under the Public Security Ministry, with the Border Police, the Yamam counterterrorism and rescue unit, and the Yasam riot and crowd-control unit among its principal sub-units.[14]

During the May 2021 violence in mixed Jewish-Arab cities, following weeks of rising tensions in Jerusalem, Shabtai said: “We are witnessing a situation we have not seen before in mixed cities.”[3] In a July interview, he acknowledged that police had not anticipated events of that scale and that forces in Lod could not cope with 40 simultaneous incidents.[15] He described transferring forces from Jerusalem and reinforcing them with Border Police units.[15] By the interview, he said, police had made more than 2,000 arrests and more than 300 indictments had been filed.[15] He also discussed deploying 300 officers to reinforce policing in the Arab sector and establishing new units.[15]

After the March 22, 2022 terrorist attack in Beersheba, which killed four people and wounded two, Shabtai said the attacker was known to Israeli security authorities and had previously been imprisoned.[16] In June 2023, he joined IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and Israel Security Agency Director Ronen Bar in condemning attacks by Israeli civilians against Palestinians in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — as “national terrorism” that had to be combatted.[17]

In June 2023, Shabtai and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir announced that his term would end on January 17, 2024.[18] The government instead extended it by six months in January 2024 amid the war.[2] Police held a farewell event on July 14.[19] He left office on July 17, concluding a 33-year police career and three and a half years as commissioner.[2]

Shabtai’s career combined decorated operational service with leadership of both the Border Police and the Israel Police.[4][8] His two police medals recognized service in a career that included repeated injuries during operational activity.[1][4]

After leaving office, Shabtai credited police officers with thwarting the Hamas-led attack in communities near the Gaza border on October 7, 2023, and emphasized the critical decisions officers had made on the ground.[19] He also said he expected his successor to preserve an apolitical police service, describing the institution as a professional and unbiased system whose duties should remain separate from political pressure.[19]

The state commission investigating the 2021 Mount Meron crush, in which 45 people died, assigned Shabtai personal responsibility for the disaster.[6][20] It found that he approved the police operation plan despite knowing the site could not safely accommodate the expected crowds, without adequate consideration of alternatives or crowd limits.[6] Its findings would otherwise have supported recommending his removal, but it left the timing of his departure to the government because his term had been extended during the war.[6]

In his 2022 testimony, Shabtai had denied responsibility, identifying engineering failure as the root cause and arguing that checking COVID-19 Green Passes could have created a bottleneck.[20] He said politicians and the virus czar had decided against restrictions, and disputed former operations chief Amnon Alkalai’s account that warnings were ignored.[20] After the findings, Shabtai said he respected the commission’s work and took full responsibility for police failures in preparing for the event; he also said he had sought to leave at the beginning of 2024 but agreed to continue during the war.[21]

Police conduct at journalist Shireen Abu Akleh’s May 13, 2022 funeral drew scrutiny after officers struck pallbearers and mourners with batons, nearly causing her coffin to fall.[22] Public-security officials investigated, but officers and commanders reportedly received no penalties.[22] Shabtai called the funeral a “complex event” and said it was “impossible to remain indifferent to the harsh images,” without releasing the formal findings.[22]

Religious access and public order also produced legal disputes.[23] On April 15, 2022, Shabtai said the Temple Mount was open to residents of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza to pray and observe their religion.[23] Four Jewish Israelis subsequently cited his statement in challenging a 15-day exclusion order imposed after overt prayer at the site.[23] The Jerusalem Magistrate Court overturned the order, but the District Court reversed that decision, holding that Jewish worship there was not absolute and had to be weighed against public order and other interests.[23]

Following the acquittal of the Border Police officer who shot and killed Iyad Hallak in 2020, Shabtai and Border Police Commander Amir Cohen praised the decision and approved the officer’s return to duty.[24] Hallak was an unarmed autistic Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, travelling to a special-needs school in the Old City; the officer had mistaken his mobile phone for a weapon.[24] Hallak’s family expressed shock at the acquittal and alleged unequal justice for Jews and Arabs.[24]

In 2023, Shabtai described a breakdown of trust with Ben Gvir and said he had considered resigning over ministerial interventions in police matters.[5] Their disagreements involved operations and personnel, including the reassignment of Tel Aviv District commander Amichai Eshed, which Shabtai later called a lapse of judgment.[5] He opposed placing a proposed national guard under the minister’s authority and said in June that he would not serve a fourth year “under these conditions,” while emphasizing his efforts to preserve professional standards under three cabinets and three ministers.[5][25]

On October 17, 2023, following the October 7 Hamas attack, Shabtai declared “zero tolerance” for protests expressing solidarity with Gaza and said those wishing to identify with Gaza could be taken there on buses.[26] His remarks followed the dispersal of a small Haifa protest against Israeli military operations, which authorities said lacked a permit.[26] The Supreme Court later stated that the commissioner could not impose a general ban on demonstrations and that requests had to be assessed individually.[26]