Avi Dichter

Avi Dichter was born in 1952 in Ashkelon

Avi Dichter was born in Ashkelon on 14 December 1952. His parents were Holocaust survivors from Poland. As a youth he was a member of the Hashomer Hatzair movement.

He enlisted in the IDF in 1971 and served in Sayeret Matkal as a fighter. He joined the Shin Bet in 1974 as a security guard for El Al. He later earned a bachelor's degree from Bar-Ilan University in 1986 and an MBA from Tel Aviv University.

In the Shin Bet he worked in the Southern District and the Gaza Strip, and became head of the district in 1992. He was named deputy director in 1999 and director in 2000, a post he held during the Second Intifada until 2005.

After a period as a research fellow at the Brookings Institution, he joined Kadima and was elected to the Knesset in 2006. He served as Minister of Internal Security and later as Minister of Home Front Defense. He later joined Likud and chaired the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee from 2016 to 2019.

In late 2022 he was appointed Minister of Agriculture. In November 2023 his remarks on the displacement of civilians in northern Gaza drew criticism in Israel and abroad.