Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to leave the Prime Minister’s official residence on Balfour Street in Jerusalem on Saturday, and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is expected to enter it the next day, Sunday.
Channel 12 News reported on Monday that the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) is demanding that the Prime Minister's residence be renovated because the home has serious security deficiencies and requires various security upgrades that must be installed.
The Shin Bet determined that the home, as it stands today, does not meet the standard required for a Prime Minister to stay in it in during an emergency. These repairs had been attempted for a long time, but in order to carry them out, the residents of the official residence had to stay out of it for a period of time - which did not happen during Netanyahu's tenure, when he and his family lived in the home permanently, except on weekends.
The renovations will be carried out in the near future and their cost will range from 10 million shekels to 15 million shekels. Bennett will not be required to delay his entry into the official residence due to this.
Yair Netanyahu, the son of former Prime Minister Netanyahu, responded to the report on his Telegram account and wrote, "LOL how rotten everything is in the country. Netanyahu has lived in Balfour for 12 consecutive years. No one from the Shin Bet demanded renovations during that time. The whole house is full of greenery and plaster is peeling from the walls, water drips from the ceiling when it rains, and the whole house is filled with buckets."
"Every time we asked to renovate these things, the Legal Advisor of the Prime Minister's Office would not approve. And now suddenly Netanyahu is leaving Balfour and the Shin Bet is demanding a renovation of 15 million shekels. Hey Shin Bet, where have you been for 12 years?" he added.