Police arrest Israeli woman suspected in threats to PM Bennett’s family

Jerusalem: Israeli police arrested on Monday a 65-year-old woman suspected of sending death threats with bullets to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s family last month.

A statement from the police only identified the woman as a resident of southern Israel. Police said further details of the case remained under a court-issued gag order.

Bennett’s family received two death threats in the mail, along with the bullets. In response, security around the premier and his family was tightened and police and the Shin Bet internal security agency opened an investigation.

Bennett, who leads a small nationalist party, has come under intense criticism from Israeli hard-liners who accuse him of abandoning his ideology. In 1995, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish ultranationalist opposed to his peacemaking attempts with the Palestinians.

Bennett leads a narrow coalition of eight parties ranging from a small Islamist party to Jewish ultra-nationalists that have little in common beyond their opposition to former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Bennett’s government was formed after four inconclusive parliamentary elections that highlighted deep divisions in Israeli society over relations with the Palestinians, religion and state, and Netanyahu’s fitness to rule while on trial for corruption.