Netanyahu Calls the Israeli Freed From a Venezuelan Jail

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on Tuesday with Yaakov Harari, an Israeli-Argentine businessman released the previous night from prison in Venezuela, according to the statement issued from Jerusalem on 13 January 2026. Harari had landed in Israel a short time before the call.

The statement said Venezuela had accused Harari of being a mercenary, that he was 72, and that he had been held for more than a year by the government of Nicolas Maduro along with dozens of other Western prisoners. His daughters, Yael and Ya'ara, joined the call and thanked the State of Israel, the prime minister, the Jewish community in Caracas and Israel's envoys for what they described as a relentless effort to free their father. Netanyahu congratulated the family and wished Harari a recovery and a return to normal life after what the statement called the nightmare they had been through.

Who Israel thanked, and for what

The prime minister's statement singled out the Foreign Ministry, the Mossad and Gal Hirsch, whose official title is Israel's coordinator for hostages and missing persons, a post he has held since the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023, according to The Jerusalem Post, and thanked the American, German, Austrian and Italian governments for their help in bringing Harari home.

An account by The Times of Israel, citing an Israeli official, filled in some of what that involved: a consular visit was arranged through Germany's ambassador in Caracas, and the effort ran through the US State Department and the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, the Austrian hostage envoy and the Red Cross. The same account said Israel coordinated with the United States, Britain, Canada, Germany and Austria, all of which had citizens in Venezuelan prisons, and that Harari was handed to the community rabbi in Caracas, moved to a third country the official declined to name, and flown to Israel from there.

The wider release he was part of

Harari was one of a much larger group let out at the same time. Ynetnews reported that Venezuela freed 116 detainees on 13 January 2026 in what the government there presented as a goodwill gesture towards Washington, following the capture of Maduro. Harari, the report said, had been held at the El Rodeo I prison after being detained on crossing into Venezuela from Colombia, and Israeli officials had at first been unable to establish where he was or why he had been taken.

What is still unclear

Nothing in the statement addressed the accusation Venezuela had made against Harari: it dealt only with the release, and with the thanks owed for it. It gave no date for his arrest and no account of the conditions in which he was held, and it described his detention as lasting more than a year while the accompanying summary line put it at 18 months. It did not say what, if anything, Israel gave or agreed to in exchange, or on what legal basis Venezuela had held him. It named the Jewish community in Caracas but did not describe what part it played.