Tzachi Hanegbi

Hanegbi was born in Jerusalem on February 26, 1957.[1] His parents were fighters in the Jewish underground, and his mother, Geula Cohen, was a pre-state underground fighter who subsequently became a veteran right-wing lawmaker.[7] He served in the Israel Defense Forces’ Paratroopers Brigade from 1974 to 1977, and his career before his appointment to the National Security Council also included work as a journalist.[1][8]

He studied international relations and law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, earning bachelor’s degrees in those subjects.[9] His first leadership positions were in student politics: he headed the Hebrew University Student Union in 1979–80 and the National Union of Israeli Students from 1980 to 1982.[1] These positions preceded his work in the offices of senior government figures and his election to the Knesset.[1]

From 1984 to 1986, Hanegbi served as an adviser to the foreign minister.[1] He then worked as bureau director in the Prime Minister’s Office from 1986 to 1988, before entering parliament.[1] His service under Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir also included the position of chief of staff.[7]

Hanegbi was first elected to the Knesset in 1988 on the Likud ticket and served as a lawmaker for most of the period through 2022, apart from the interval between 2010 and 2013.[1][7] His parliamentary assignments included the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee; the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee; the House Committee; the Labor and Social Welfare Committee; and the Education and Culture Committee.[1] He later chaired the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, recalling in a September 2023 interview that he had held its chairmanship for six years.[10]

His first cabinet appointments came in Benjamin Netanyahu’s first government: he served as health minister in 1996 and as justice minister from 1996 to 1999.[1] Under Ariel Sharon, he became environment minister, serving from 2001 to 2003, and also held the transportation portfolio from 2002 to 2003.[1] Following the 2003 election, he served as internal security minister, a position he held until 2005, and subsequently held a ministerial role in the Prime Minister’s Office during 2004–06.[1][9] His ministerial responsibilities over the course of his career also included oversight of intelligence services and the Atomic Energy Agency, as well as agriculture and settlement portfolios.[1][11]

In security-related ministerial roles, Hanegbi was responsible for overseeing the Mossad, Shin Bet, Atomic Energy Agency, and security ties with the United States.[1] His experience therefore included both parliamentary scrutiny through the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and ministerial responsibility for intelligence institutions.[1]

Hanegbi supported Israel’s 2005 disengagement from Gaza.[12] He left Likud for the newly established Kadima party during the political realignment associated with Sharon and was reelected to the Knesset in 2006.[1][9] After that election, he became chair of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.[9] He resigned from Kadima and returned to Likud in 2012 after Kadima decided to leave the unity government, a decision he described as irresponsible.[1] In January 2013, he returned to the Knesset on the Likud list.[1]

In June 2014, Hanegbi was appointed deputy minister of foreign affairs.[1] He later served as a minister without portfolio before receiving the regional cooperation portfolio in December 2016.[13] His appointment to regional cooperation followed a period in which he had again chaired the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.[13] During this period, he was a close confidant of Netanyahu and had already held a broad range of cabinet positions.[13]

Netanyahu gave Hanegbi a separate assignment in June 2016: reopening government files concerning children who disappeared after their families immigrated from Yemen in the late 1940s and early 1950s.[3] Hanegbi reviewed documents relating to approximately 3,600 cases and recommended releasing all material except information protected by confidentiality, including adopted children’s names.[3] The commission’s materials were posted on a public website on December 28, 2016.[3]

In February 2017, Hanegbi was assigned to serve as acting communications minister for three months while retaining his regional cooperation responsibilities.[14] He had already received authority over communications matters concerning Bezeq.[14] The transfer followed High Court petitions concerning Netanyahu’s continued control of the communications portfolio and a conflict-of-interest issue connected with his friendship with Bezeq controlling shareholder Shaul Elovitch.[14]

As regional cooperation minister, Hanegbi visited Armenia on July 25–26, 2017, holding talks with senior Armenian officials.[15] It was the first visit by a senior Israeli official to Armenia since 2012.[15] Hanegbi said the purpose was to advance bilateral relations and make the countries’ “friendship mutually beneficial in many fields.”[15] By that time, his ministerial career had extended across two decades.[15]

Economic cooperation also featured in his regional portfolio.[16] At the fourth annual Innonation China-Israel Investment Summit in Zhuhai in 2018, Hanegbi said that 13 percent of investment in Israeli technology came from China and called China Israel’s biggest partner in Asia.[16] His diplomatic contacts also included a personal rapport with Hussein al-Sheikh, a senior civilian adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.[12]

Hanegbi’s standing within Likud’s candidate-selection process declined during the later part of his parliamentary career.[7] He finished eighth in the party’s 2015 primary, thirteenth in 2019, and twenty-fifth on the national list in 2022.[7] The 2022 result placed him forty-sixth overall on the Likud electoral slate, and he did not win a seat in the twenty-fifth Knesset.[11] His departure from parliament followed more than thirty years of almost continuous service beginning in 1988.[11]

After the 2022 election, incoming prime minister Netanyahu appointed Hanegbi head of the National Security Council.[1] He took up that position and the role of national security adviser in January 2023, following a transition with his predecessor, Eyal Hulata.[2] Their transition included an in-depth review of security and diplomatic issues, as well as a meeting with Netanyahu to discuss sensitive matters.[2] Preparations for a visit by U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan were part of Hanegbi’s early agenda, with the Iranian nuclear threat expected to be a prominent subject.[2]

Before taking office, Hanegbi had publicly addressed the possibility of Israeli military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities.[8] In November 2022, he said that if the United States neither secured a new nuclear agreement with Iran nor acted itself, he believed Netanyahu would order a strike on those facilities.[8] In an assessment of the incoming government, the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs characterized Hanegbi and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as favoring an aggressive policy toward Iran and its regional allies.[17]

On March 6, 2023, Hanegbi participated as Israel’s national security adviser in a meeting of the U.S.-Israel Strategic Consultative Group hosted by Sullivan.[18] Discussions covered advances in Iran’s nuclear program, coordination to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, military exercises, and regional integration efforts.[18] At a Jerusalem conference held March 27–29, the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs published remarks under Hanegbi’s name calling for regional cooperation on energy, food, and water security with Jordan, Egypt, Abraham Accords partners, and African countries.[19]

In September 2023, Hanegbi said he had spent eight months leading the National Security Council.[10] Reflecting on his earlier parliamentary work, he described returning to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee as a guest rather than as its chairman as an emotional experience.[10] His national security role subsequently included public statements on the war in Gaza, hostage negotiations, and Israel’s objectives across several fronts.[20][21]

In November 2023, Hanegbi announced that the first release of Israeli hostages under an agreement with Hamas would not begin before Friday, rather than on the day initially expected.[20] He said talks were continuing and that the release would proceed under the original agreement between the sides.[20] The initial planned exchange involved fifty hostages and Palestinian security prisoners, together with a four-day pause in fighting.[20]

On May 29, 2024, Hanegbi told Kan radio that Israel expected at least seven more months of combat in Gaza.[21] He said the objective was to deepen Israel’s achievements and destroy the military and governing capabilities of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.[21] He also described the conflict as a long war involving Iranian-backed groups operating across multiple fronts.[21]

Netanyahu dismissed Hanegbi as national security adviser and National Security Council head in October 2025.[1] A June 29, 2026 report stated that Shmuel Ben-Ezra had taken office about a month earlier, following an eight-month vacancy after Hanegbi’s departure.[22]

On October 20, 2026, Hanegbi announced that he was dropping Likud and would vote for Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu.[23][4] He described the decision as ending a voting pattern that had lasted almost fifty years.[23] His stated objections included what he characterized as messianic and racist voices on the right, nationalist crime, efforts to weaken law enforcement, and broad exemptions from military and civilian service.[23] He also said Liberman had warned about Hamas before October 7, 2023, and that cabinet members and security chiefs, including himself, had not given those warnings sufficient weight.[23]

Hanegbi’s public record spans student leadership, service in the offices of senior ministers, more than three decades of parliamentary activity, numerous cabinet portfolios, and leadership of the National Security Council.[1][11] His security experience included chairing the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, overseeing intelligence-related institutions as a minister, and conducting strategic discussions with the United States as national security adviser.[1][18]

His regional cooperation work included the first senior Israeli official visit to Armenia in five years, advocacy for economic ties with China, and calls for cooperation on shared energy, food, and water needs.[15][16] In remarks published by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, he identified cooperation with neighboring states, Abraham Accords partners, and African countries as part of that regional agenda.[19]

The release of files concerning missing children from Yemenite immigrant families was another part of his governmental work: his review covered about 3,600 cases and produced a recommendation for broad disclosure with confidentiality protections.[3] When leaving the national security adviser’s office, he called for a thorough investigation of the failures leading to the October 7 massacre and said he shared responsibility; he also emphasized restoring public trust and national unity.[1]

Hanegbi’s tenure as environment minister became the subject of a criminal investigation into political appointments, leading to his suspension as public security minister in September 2004.[24] Police recommended an indictment that December, while he continued as a minister without portfolio.[24] A 2006 indictment included fraud, breach of trust, election bribery, attempting to influence voters, false testimony, and perjury; it named 321 prosecution witnesses.[25] Hanegbi welcomed a court hearing and said prosecutors were seeking to establish a precedent for punishing political appointments.[25] The indictment was filed in September 2006, and the court issued its verdict in July 2010.[25][5]

In July 2010, the Jerusalem Magistrates Court acquitted him of election bribery, fraud, and breach of trust; two other charges were dropped, but he was convicted of perjury concerning false information in a December 2002 affidavit to the Central Elections Committee chairman.[5] The appointments allegations concerned forty-nine Environment Ministry posts and another twenty-three positions at affiliated agencies, involving Likud central committee members or their relatives.[5] In November, two judges found that the perjury involved moral turpitude, while Judge Yoel Tsur dissented.[26] The court imposed a NIS 10,000 fine without imprisonment, a suspended jail term, or public service; the ruling suspended him from the Knesset, but did not bar him from running in the next term.[26] He resigned in December 2010 after a lawyers’ strike prevented the State Prosecution from filing an appeal at that time; prosecutors said they still intended to appeal.[27]

His 2016 review of the Yemenite Children Affair also entered a wider public dispute.[3][28] Hanegbi said hundreds of children had been abducted, but did not identify perpetrators, motives, or destinations.[3] The Jewish Review of Books recounts that he was unconvinced by earlier studies and said children had been taken and given away, while acknowledging that he did not know where.[28] The same account describes demands by Amram and Forum Achai for investigation and compensation, a Knesset investigation led by Nurit Koren, and 1,200 free DNA tests offered with MyHeritage; it reports that those tests did not uncover Yemenite children raised by Ashkenazi families.[28]

In July 2020, as a minister without portfolio, Hanegbi called claims that people had nothing to eat “nonsense,” arguing that many unemployed people had received benefits while businesses were struggling.[29] Following criticism, he apologized, said that had not been his intention, and promised continued efforts to help people worried about their families’ futures.[29]

At an October 14, 2023 press conference, Hanegbi acknowledged that he and others had believed Hamas had learned a lesson from the 2021 conflict and said that belief was mistaken.[6] He said Israel had not met its task and distinguished the examination then underway from a larger future investigation.[6] He also said intelligence indicators had appeared during the preceding night and referred to the Mossad chief getting up at 4 a.m.; these were his public remarks, not an independent determination of warning or responsibility.[6]

Hanegbi’s October 2025 dismissal was reported amid disputes over Gaza operations and Israel’s handling of Qatar.[1] In his farewell statement, he thanked Netanyahu, called for a thorough investigation of the failures leading to the October 7 massacre, and said he shared responsibility; he also emphasized restoring public trust and national unity.[1]