A serious security breach occurred overnight Saturday into Sunday at the Knesset: an intruder managed to pass through two security gates and enter the building, where he was caught sitting not far from Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana’s office. The incident unfolded after Foreign Ministry security guards alerted Knesset security about a man who had arrived at the Bank of Israel asking how to get to the parliament. Following the incident, Ohana ordered the Knesset officer to appoint an investigating officer to examine the circumstances of the breach and submit findings.
2+The incident began when Foreign Ministry security guards at the nearby ministry contacted Knesset security personnel and reported that a man had arrived at the Bank of Israel and asked how to reach the Knesset. Only after the alert were security cameras checked, revealing that the man had already managed to penetrate the parliament grounds.
At 2:15 a.m., a Knesset security guard opened a call after spotting a suspicious figure near the screening facility. Security forces rushed to the scene, located the man, and detained him after he had already entered the building. The man did not reach the Knesset speaker’s office but was caught inside the building, sitting not far from it.
2+In questioning conducted after his capture, according to the Knesset’s statement, it emerged that the man was mentally disturbed. He was transferred to police custody and from there to supervision at a medical facility. But beyond the circumstances related to the man himself, the incident raises serious questions about the security apparatus at one of Israel’s most sensitive buildings—chief among them, how an intruder managed to pass through two gates and reach inside the building before being stopped.
Following the severity of the incident, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana ordered the Knesset officer to appoint an investigating officer to examine the sequence of events. According to the Knesset’s statement, the purpose of the investigation is to clarify the circumstances of the incident and submit findings to the Knesset Speaker in order to prevent recurrence of similar incidents in the future.
2+The investigation is now expected to focus on how the man managed to advance into the building, the functioning of security systems, and the stages at which he could have been identified and stopped earlier.