Irit Ben-Abba

Irit Ben-Abba was born in 1958 in Tel Aviv

Irit Ben-Abba was born in 1958 in Tel Aviv. She was discharged from the IDF in 1978.

She studied East Asian Studies and English Linguistics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, graduating in 1982. She later earned an MBA there in 2005 and completed the senior staff program of the Civil Service Commission.

She finished the Foreign Ministry cadet course in 1985 and served as vice consul in Hong Kong from 1986 to 1989. She then worked on China in the ministry's Asia division and was a minister at the embassy in Beijing from 1994 to 1996. In 1996 she became head of the South and Southeast Asia department.

She became ambassador to the Philippines in 2000 and non-resident ambassador to Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia in 2004. From 2007 she was deputy director general for economic affairs at the Foreign Ministry. She was ambassador to Greece from 2014 to 2019 and chargé d'affaires in France in 2020.

In January 2021 she was appointed ambassador to China and non-resident ambassador to Mongolia. She held the post until she retired at the end of May 2025.