Defense Minister Israel Katz has been installing party activists and political allies in professional roles for which they are unqualified by employing them as external consultants, thus bypassing the ordinary hiring processes for salaried employees, a Channel 12 report alleged Monday.

The report comes in an election year, ahead of planned primaries for Katz’s Likud party, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It focused on party officials who have run or are planning to run in primaries, or who have close connections to movers and shakers within Likud.

One of these, Yair Shalom, had previously served as political adviser to now-Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, now-Transportation Minister Miri Regev, and the chief of staff of Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman. According to the Monday report, he now works for Katz at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

Shalom was hired despite being suspected of credit card fraud, according to the report, which said a case against him was initially closed but has since been reopened. The network also reported that a court had ordered Shalom to pay an alleged victim NIS 50,000 ($17,000) but that he had not done so, despite liens on his salary and his car.

His accuser, referred to by her Hebrew initial Kuf, told Channel 12, “The man stole tens of thousands of shekels from me. He was on Onlyfans, using my credit card.”

“And all the charges he incurred — by the way, I have proof for all of them — he incurred using the identity number of my ex. That’s another crime,” she said. “Of course, I reached out to him and asked him to return it. He said he was on reserve duty, when he was actually abroad.”

In response to the report, a statement on behalf of Shalom said he was hired at the Defense Ministry “after a professional, orderly selection process, in accordance with the demands of the position,” and added that “Mr. Shalom has never been questioned by the police.”

The report also focused on consultants brought on by the Defense Ministry’s purported directorate for the voluntary emigration of Gazans — a project initiated in 2025, as US President Donald Trump floated ideas of population transfer from the Strip (in some formulations voluntary or temporary, and in others permanent and seemingly mandated).

The TV network cited the Movement for Freedom of Information, which said it had pressed for details on the directorate, about which next to nothing is publicly known, including whether it even exists.

“We didn’t receive answers, contrary to the Freedom of Information Law,” said Heidi Negev, the group’s director. “We were forced to sue the Israel Defense Forces and the Defense Ministry.”

“The IDF responded to us that nothing had been planned, not one meeting had been held by the IDF, no money had been designated by the IDF for voluntary emigration,” he said. The Defense Ministry, meanwhile, refused to answer the group’s questions.

The Channel 12 report, however, found what it termed a “sign of life” from the directorate, in a remark made by Likud official and former Safed mayor Shuki Ohana. Ohana told friends at one point that he’d “got a job in the Defense Ministry” and was working on “the ‘day after’ in Gaza. We’re planning for the future there.”

In response to the report, a representative of Ohana denied that he worked for the directorate.

Another external consultant probed by the report was Fateen Mulla, a Druze former MK who last year announced he’d been appointed as an adviser to Katz, and told Channel 12 he was working in a directorate in the north, on “the matter of Syria and everything related to taking care of the Druze there.”

Separate roles in the ministry were also given to party activists Moshe Revach and Mordechai Benita, according to the network, with the latter brought on for a project regarding the border with Jordan, whose budget totals some NIS 5.5 billion ($1.86 billion).

The Defense Ministry responded to the report, saying in a statement: “The people referenced in the report are not state employees, but rather external suppliers providing advisory services to the Defense Ministry.

“Their selections were made according to procedure — including approvals from the Defense Ministry’s board of advisers. The defense minister was not involved and is not involved in those processes,” the statement continued.

It noted that Benita’s job “was published [in a tender] to the public, and he was chosen from all candidates due to his experience and skills,” adding: “The defense minister was not involved in that appointment process, either.”

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