A longtime household employee at the Israeli prime minister’s residence filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing Sara Netanyahu of years of verbal abuse, humiliation and unreasonable working conditions, including ethnic insults and demands that he continue working after undergoing a cardiac procedure.
Rami Ben Hamo, who worked for the Prime Minister’s Office and at the official residence for more than a decade, is seeking 450,000 shekels in compensation in a case filed with the Jerusalem Regional Labor Court. The suit comes about a month after another residence employee, Yehiel Ohev Ami, filed a separate lawsuit raising allegations over his employment conditions.
According to the filing, Ben Hamo was directly employed by the Prime Minister’s Office as a household worker from March 2023 until December 2025. During that period, he alleges, he suffered “extreme abuse” from the prime minister’s wife on a daily basis and was required to work irregular hours in conditions that violated labor law.
Ben Hamo says his workday generally began at around 7:30 a.m. and sometimes continued into the middle of the night or early morning. He claims he worked an average of 60 to 80 overtime hours each month and that when he failed to carry out Sara Netanyahu’s instructions exactly as demanded, he was subjected to “screaming, insults and humiliation.”
‘Backward Moroccan’
The lawsuit describes a series of alleged incidents involving cleaning and household tasks. Ben Hamo says Sara Netanyahu required him to clean her personal bag and the soles of her shoes with wipes and instructed him to wash his hands when entering the house and between tasks, sometimes more than 10 times a day. If he forgot, he alleges, she responded with a barrage of shouting and insults.
He also claims the treatment worsened during his final months at the residence. According to the suit, Sara Netanyahu told him, among other things, “You don’t know how to clean,” “You clean badly” and “Why aren’t the baseboards clean?” In another alleged incident, she told him to “get out,” accused him of having “ruined my family” and said: “The prime minister and I don’t like you.”
One of the most serious allegations concerns the way Ben Hamo was instructed to fold plastic bags. According to the filing, when he failed to fold one exactly as Sara Netanyahu wanted, she allegedly told him: “Come, I’ll teach you how to fold bags,” “My children fold better than you,” and “You’re a backward Moroccan.”
She also allegedly told him: “You should pay me a salary for teaching you how to work” and “I am the prime minister’s wife. You will do what I tell you.”
Ben Hamo says the comment about his Moroccan background was particularly hurtful and was repeated more than once. At times, according to the suit, he cried and begged her to stop.
He also alleges that he was required to work late despite his daughter’s condition and was on several occasions kept at work after the beginning of Shabbat on Friday evening, even though Sara Netanyahu knew he was observant. On another occasion, he says, he was called to the Balfour residence on Saturday night to wash dishes.
Claims he kept working after cardiac procedure
According to the lawsuit, Ben Hamo experienced chest pain during a workday in February 2025. After seeking medical attention, he was told he was suffering a cardiac event and was taken to Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital, where he underwent a catheterization procedure.
He alleges that the treatment he received at work became even harsher afterward. Among other remarks, Sara Netanyahu allegedly told him: “Come on, let them find me someone else instead of you,” as well as “You’re blind,” “You don’t know how to wash a floor,” “Nothing is ever clean,” and “You don’t know how to make a bed. I’ll teach you.”
Ben Hamo says he repeatedly asked his supervisors to transfer him to work at the Prime Minister’s Office rather than the residence. According to the lawsuit, he was told to “buy time” and “hold on” because there were no other workers available to replace him.
‘May God take me away from this job’
Another incident described in the suit allegedly took place shortly before Ben Hamo left the residence.
He claims Sara Netanyahu became angry because a cabinet containing plastic bags was not arranged to her satisfaction, threw the bags onto the floor and left him crawling on the floor to collect them. The filing says she then demonstrated how to fold a bag, shouted at him and angrily slammed a bottle of tonic water onto the floor.
Sara and Benjamin Netanyahu
(Photo: Maayan Toaf/GPO; image graphically edited on behalf of Sara Netanyahu)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later arrived at the residence, according to the lawsuit. Sara Netanyahu allegedly told him that Ben Hamo had said, “May God take her already.”
Ben Hamo says that was not what he had said. He claims that the previous day he had actually said: “May God take me away from this job already.”
According to the filing, he attempted to explain to the prime minister that he meant he wanted to be taken away from the job because he was suffering, but Netanyahu asked him to leave the house.
Ohev Ami, the employee who filed a separate suit last month, was then called to the residence, the lawsuit says. Security personnel allegedly asked him to come urgently because of the shouting and confrontation. When he arrived, the filing claims, he found Ben Hamo “pale and shaking” and complaining of chest pain.
Ben Hamo says that after telling officials he could no longer continue working at the residence, he was asked to submit a written request to leave. He claims he initially wrote that he wanted to leave because the prime minister’s wife shouted at him, but acting Prime Minister’s Office director-general Drorit Steinmetz refused to accept that wording and instructed him to say he was leaving for “personal reasons.”
The lawsuit says Ben Hamo began the job with “great reverence and endless respect for the prime minister and his wife,” but over time came to feel that “he was being treated like a slave rather than an employee.”
He is seeking 400,000 shekels for alleged nonfinancial harm, workplace abuse, breach of the duty of good faith and emotional distress, as well as another 50,000 shekels for alleged violations of Israel’s Hours of Work and Rest Law.
A statement issued on Netanyahu’s behalf rejected the allegations, calling them “fake news” and part of what it described as an escalating campaign against the prime minister and his family during election periods.
The statement accused Channel 12 of conducting a “shameless election campaign” on behalf of Netanyahu’s political opponents and said allegations against the family were being repeatedly recycled.
The claims in the lawsuit have not yet been adjudicated by the labor court.