Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday fired a shot across the bow of lawmakers who he insinuated were looking to improve their electoral prospects through public statements, in comments seen as a swipe at Defense Minister Israel Katz.

He also briefly barred four ministers who arrived late for Sunday’s cabinet meeting.

“The elections will be held by the end of [next] year — we know that — and I assume it will be at the end of the year,” Netanyahu said at the meeting. “But during this election year, we are witnessing a barrage of primaries [campaigning], both from within Likud and from outside.”

The country is set to go to the polls by October 27, 2026 at latest.

“The issues being discussed constantly in this barrage of tweets — which I don’t recall happening in the past about security matters — are all about: ‘I said, I did, I updated,’ including topics related to our national security,” said Netanyahu. “I remind you that these matters are determined in coordination with the prime minister, who is responsible for them.”

Netanyahu did not list any ministers by name, but his remarks were widely seen as focused on Katz — a member of the premier’s Likud party — who regularly posts about top security and diplomatic issues, seeming to take credit for a tough Israeli line.

There are also apparent tensions between the premier and Katz over the pick for the next IDF legal chief.

Shortly before the cabinet meeting, Katz — a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party — had written on X that “Israel’s policy is clear: A Palestinian state will not be established.”

“The IDF will remain on Mount Hermon and in the security zone [in Syria]. Gaza will be demilitarized down to the last tunnel, and Hamas will be disarmed — in the yellow zone by the IDF, and in old Gaza by the international force, or by the IDF.”

Katz’s statement was an apparent response to the release of a US-organized joint statement by several nations asserting that there is a “pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood” in US President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan.

Last week the defense minister wrote that he ordered the IDF to destroy all the tunnels in Gaza, and warned Hezbollah that it was “playing with fire” in Lebanon.

Locked cabinet

The cabinet meeting got off to a tetchy start when Netanyahu kept four tardy ministers outside soon after the start of the meeting, after issuing warnings last week about absences and late arrivals.

Economy Minister Nir Barkat, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, Negev, Galilee and National Resilience Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf, and Social Equality Minister May Golan were kept outside for the first ten minutes of the meeting, Ynet reported.

“The cheek of it. Like kindergarten,” an unnamed minister fumed.

Last week, due to growing frustration on the part of Netanyahu over sparsely attended cabinet meetings, his cabinet secretary, Yossi Fuchs, issued a series of measures to punish latecomers and absentees.

A minister who shows up late or misses a cabinet meeting without being excused will be barred from presenting proposals related to their ministry at the next meeting, Fuchs told government ministers.

A minister who is late or absent from two meetings without prior approval will not be granted funds for work travel abroad, he added.