Sara Netanyahu faces fresh abuse allegations from former staff at PM residence

Sara Netanyahu, wife of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facing a new wave of lawsuits and public accusations about abuse and mistreatment, including verbal humiliation, yelling, insulting and demanding excessive work at the premier's residence, adding to a pattern of similar complaints stretching back more than a decade.

Yehiel Ohev-Ami, 61, a former cook and cleaner at the residence who was let go roughly five months ago, has filed suit against Sara Netanyahu seeking about 300,000 shekels (appx $98,000) in damages. His complaint alleges a pattern of verbal and physical abuse, including a requirement that he wipe the couple's shoe soles daily while being careful not to let his hand slip inside the shoe. He says minor errors, such as folding laundry incorrectly, triggered screaming outbursts.

Ohev-Ami claims Sara Netanyahu once told him she had diagnosed him with autism and then demanded he pay her for the "therapy," reportedly telling him, "I am the prime minister's wife. I am the number one psychologist in Israel, and I have no competitors."

Netanyahu's office rejected these allegations, calling them “another attempt to manufacture an extortion of money from the state by defaming the prime minister's wife.”

In a separate complaint, a former staffer identified only as "Y" told Israel's Channel 12 that both Sara Netanyahu and her son, Yair, subjected them to physical abuse, humiliating treatment, and racial bias, alleging in particular a hostility toward Mizrahi Jews and foreign workers. The staffer said he was pushed on three separate occasions and was made to work extreme overtime, as much as 169 hours in a single month. Yair Netanyahu has denied ever pushing or mistreating the employee, calling the claims fabricated or an attempted blackmail.

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In 2016, a Jerusalem labour court awarded former residence manager Meni Naftali roughly 170,000 shekels after finding he had been subjected to abusive working conditions. The ruling was issued against the state rather than Netanyahu personally. Another maintenance worker, Guy Eliyahu, received compensation the same year after a court upheld much of his claim describing an environment of fear and humiliation. In 2025, an employment agency paid compensation to a cafeteria worker who said Netanyahu had thrown tomatoes and olives at her and disparaged her repeatedly over two years. However, a 2022 case brought by a cleaning worker was rejected by the Labour Court, which found she had not proven her allegations were credible.
Sara Netanyahu and her legal team have consistently and firmly denied the accusations. In testimony related to an earlier case, she described the pattern of lawsuits as something she has "lived with... for thirty years," suggesting they are copy-and-paste attempts by former employees to extract money and publicity by targeting her specifically because of her position.
The new cases are expected to move through Israel's labour courts in the coming months, adding fresh legal and political scrutiny to the Prime Minister's household at a time when Benjamin Netanyahu is already facing separate political and legal pressures.