Ofir Gendelman

Ofir Gendelman was born in 1971

Ofir Gendelman was born in Israel on July 19, 1971. He finished the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa in 1989, where he studied Arabic and Islam.

After school he served in the IDF until 1994. He earned a bachelor's degree in international relations and Middle Eastern studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1997. He added a master's in strategic studies from Tel Aviv University in 2000 and an MBA from Bar-Ilan University in 2010.

He joined the Foreign Ministry in 1998 as an analyst of Palestinian affairs. In 2001 he became the ministry's first spokesman to the Arab media, during the Second Intifada. From 2003 to 2007 he was consul and second secretary at Israel's embassy in Canada, and in 2008 he became director of the ministry's Arab press and public diplomacy division.

In 2009 he became the founding CEO of the Israeli-Palestinian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In April 2010 he became the first spokesman of the Prime Minister's Office to the Arab media, serving under Benjamin Netanyahu, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid until January 2023.

He then founded Gendelman Strategic Consulting, which helps Israeli firms find clients in the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco. He returned to the spokesman role in October 2023 during the Gaza war. Some videos he shared during the war, and in 2021, were reported by media as misrepresented footage.