Moshe Saada

Moshe Saada is a lawyer by training who devoted more than two decades to public prosecution. As of a November 2022 profile, he was 50 years old, married with five children, and living in Mazkeret Batya.[1]

Saada spent 24 years in Israel's State Attorney's Office, the bulk of that time in the Department for Investigation of Police — known in Hebrew as Mahash, or MHSD — which investigates and prosecutes police officers.[2] He became the department's deputy director in 2011.[1] When his superior, department head Uri Carmel, left the post for health reasons, Saada served as acting head of Mahash for approximately one year and was widely considered the leading candidate to fill the role permanently.[3] Former police commissioner Roni Alsheikh opposed his appointment, and attorney Keren Bar-Menachem was named department head instead.[3]

In a 2023 interview, Saada said he had not initially wanted to enter politics and had expected to continue as Mahash head or as a state prosecutor.[2]

Saada's departure from state service was contested. The official explanation offered by the Justice Ministry was a "severe and deep crisis of trust" between him and Mahash director Keren Bar-Menachem that the ministry's director-general said made continued work together impossible.[3] State Attorney Amit Aisman was reported to believe that Saada's presence would seriously harm the department; the ministry offered him a different senior position outside the State Attorney's Office.[3] Saada's associates disputed the decision and called the dismissal brutal, questioning why senior posts were offered elsewhere but not within the prosecution service.[3]

Accounts of the timing of his removal differ. A July 2022 Jerusalem Post report states he was relieved of his deputy-head duties in October 2021 and formally left state service the week before that article's publication.[4] A November 2022 Ynet profile, by contrast, described him as having been dismissed in late 2022.[1]

Saada filed a labor-court lawsuit against Bar-Menachem and former State Attorney Shai Nitzan, alleging workplace harassment, and alleged that investigations in several high-profile cases — including the Umm al-Hiran shooting, the Meron disaster, and the death of Ahuvia Sandak — had been compromised.[3] In a letter explaining his decision to withdraw his appeal against dismissal, he wrote that members of the public had urged him to help "correct the system from the outside," and that withdrawing the appeal would make him eligible to stand for the Knesset.[5]

Saada entered the 25th Knesset as a Likud member following the November 2022 election. He was number 28 on Likud's candidate list, and Likud won 32 seats, securing his place in parliament.[6][1]

Saada has said that he met Netanyahu at the home of Tzachi Braverman for a two-hour conversation focused on the justice system, fairness, and principles; several months later, Netanyahu aide Nevo Katz offered him a reserved place on the Likud list.[7] For the 2026 election, he is listed at number 17 on the Likud slate, a significant improvement over his 2022 position.[8][9]

During the 2022 election period, Saada expressed support for reform of the justice system but said changes should be carried out "wisely, responsibly and carefully." He also stated that, based on his 24 years in the system, abolishing the offense of breach of trust was not the right approach.[10]

Saada's most prominent legislative focus has been restructuring Mahash. He argued that the department's placement within the State Attorney's Office created structural conflicts of interest: prosecutors and police work closely together on criminal cases, yet Mahash is tasked with investigating those same police officers.[2] "The job of Mahash in the State of Israel is as an independent department that both investigates and prosecutes" police officers, he said in a 2023 interview.[2]

His original proposal sought to separate Mahash from the State Attorney's Office and expand its mandate to also investigate the Shin Bet and state prosecutors.[2] At the time of a 2023 interview, the proposal remained in committee deliberations.[2] A 2023 Ynet report noted that Knesset Ethics Committee rules prevented Saada from advancing the bill himself while he was suing Mahash for NIS 500,000; he said another Knesset member would carry the legislation forward.[11]

The State Attorneys' Organization objected to the proposal in 2023, warning that moving Mahash to the Justice Ministry could expose investigations to political influence and place the unit under a less professional authority.[2] Similar objections accompanied enactment in 2026: Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara and State Attorney Amit Aisman warned that the governance structure could enable political control and harm the department's independence.[12]

The legislation passed the Knesset on June 11, 2026, by a vote of 43–39.[13] As enacted, the law establishes Mahash within the Justice Ministry as a unit separate from the State Attorney's Office, with its director appointed for a single six-year term by a committee; it also transfers certain criminal-law powers to the Mahash director and creates a mechanism for resolving disputes between Mahash and other investigative or prosecutorial bodies.[12] Most provisions were scheduled to take effect eight months after publication, with a possible four-month postponement.[13] Justice Minister Yariv Levin joined Saada in arguing that the separation addresses genuine conflicts of interest.[13]

On September 4, 2026, the High Court of Justice issued an interim order freezing provisions relating to the director's appointment, the selection committee, a new dispute-resolution official, and the separate budget, while petitions against the law remained pending; a hearing was scheduled for December 28.[13] Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara, who supported the interim order, warned that advancing appointments during an election period could have a chilling effect on police officers, investigators, and prosecutors.[13] The interim order did not strike down the law, and the Knesset and Justice Minister Levin opposed it.[13]

Saada has made a series of serious allegations about the conduct of senior law-enforcement and prosecution officials — allegations that have been disputed and, in several instances, publicly rejected.

In a July 2022 interview on N12, he alleged that then-police commissioner Roni Alsheikh had obstructed Mahash investigations, most notably the probe into the 2017 Umm al-Hiran incident, in which Bedouin resident Ya'akub Abu al-Qi'an was shot and Border Police officer Erez Levi was killed. Saada said Mahash's examination led it to conclude that Abu al-Qi'an had been shot before his vehicle struck and killed the officer — contrary to the police's initial characterization of the incident as a terrorist attack — and that Alsheikh pressured him to drop the investigation and threatened to dismantle the department.[14] He also accused former attorney-general Avichai Mandelblit and former state attorney Shai Nitzan of covering for Alsheikh.[4] The officer involved in Abu al-Qi'an's death was cleared of wrongdoing in 2018.[4] Alsheikh rejected Saada's allegations as "preposterous lies with no grasp of reality," and the Justice Ministry argued that Saada had acted against his superiors.[4]

Saada testified as a defense witness in Benjamin Netanyahu's criminal trial and later appeared a second time.[15] He alleged in testimony that former State Attorney Nitzan told him not to question under caution the officer who shot Abu al-Qi'an, and that officials urged Mahash not to inflame relations with the police during what they called a "sensitive period." Saada said he understood references to a "sensitive case" as meaning the Netanyahu prosecutions, and described receiving a WhatsApp message he attributed to Alsheikh reading, "Go after Saada, this is sick."[15] He also alleged that senior police and prosecution officials were concerned about the effect of the Umm al-Hiran case on the Netanyahu investigations, saying, "The Netanyahu cases are the only thing that matters at the time, the entire establishment is fixated on that."[4] These accounts are Saada's testimony and allegations; the reporting includes denials by Alsheikh and Nitzan, who called the claims false, and does not establish them as independent findings.[4][14]