Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pardon request advanced on Tuesday after Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu submitted his opinion to President Isaac Herzog, together with the Justice Ministry pardons department’s legal assessment and accompanying materials.
The President’s Residence said that the file would now move to its internal legal review process. Eliyahu took over handling the request from Justice Minister Yariv Levin.
According to the President’s Residence, Herzog thanked Eliyahu and the pardons department for what it described as thorough and comprehensive work carried out in line with the relevant procedures.
Responding to Eliyahu’s recommendation, NGO the Movement for Quality Government in Israel said the minister was advancing “a disgraceful and improper political decision” contrary to the recommendation of professional authorities, and argued that the pardon process must not become “a refuge city for corrupt elected officials.”
In a sharply worded statement, the group said that while missiles were falling on Israeli cities, Eliyahu had chosen to submit a recommendation for a pardon for the prime minister.
“The timing is not accidental; under cover of war, they are advancing a pardon,” the group said, adding that, in its view, the move stood in direct contradiction to the pardons department’s position that the request did not meet legal requirements, and warned that granting a pardon under such circumstances – without an admission of guilt, without remorse, and without leaving office – would amount to direct harm to the separation of powers and set a dangerous precedent, allowing elected officials to use political power to evade judgment.
The organization called on Herzog to stop avoiding a decision and rule, saying a pardon “is not a gift granted because of an attack in Iran” and that the process must not become a shelter for corrupt public officials.
The submission marks another step in one of Israel’s most unusual clemency proceedings, given that Netanyahu’s criminal trial is still ongoing.
Netanyahu formally submitted the request on November 30, 2025, in what the President’s Office at the time described as an extraordinary move with significant implications.
Under the standard procedure outlined then, the request was first transferred to the Justice Ministry’s pardons department, whose assessments were to be forwarded for legal review before Herzog makes a final decision.
From the outset, the request unfolded against a sustained public and political campaign to halt the trial. In June 2025, US President Donald Trump publicly called on Israel to pardon Netanyahu or cancel the trial altogether, intensifying calls from Netanyahu’s supporters to use the presidency to end the proceedings.
That pressure later moved from public rhetoric into formal channels.
In October 2025, several senior ministers sent a letter to Herzog, arguing that the trial had become socially destructive and urging presidential intervention, in a further escalation of efforts to stop a case that began in 2020 and is now deep into cross-examination.
Trump later sent Herzog a signed letter urging him to pardon Netanyahu, calling the case political persecution. Netanyahu submitted his own formal pardon request later that month.
Netanyahu’s trial faces unprecedented move amid ongoing war
Tuesday’s development advances an effort with little precedent in Israel: seeking to short-circuit the country’s most consequential ongoing criminal trial while the defendant remains in office, the war persists, and security pressures continue to dominate public life.
Netanyahu was indicted in Cases 1000, 2000, and 4000 on bribery, fraud, and breach-of-trust charges, and has pleaded not guilty.
The trial, which opened in 2020, remains in the cross-examination stage. Herzog has said any decision on a pardon would be made independently, according to Israeli law and his conscience.