Israel nominates Netanyahu confidant as US ambassador

The Israeli government said Sunday it had approved the nomination of Yechiel Leiter, an ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as the country's ambassador to the United States.

The announcement comes after US President-elect Donald Trump named hard-line conservative Mike Huckabee as his choice for US ambassador to Israel under his incoming administration.

"The government has unanimously approved the appointment of Dr Yechiel Leiter as ambassador to the United States," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

A former adviser to Netanyahu, Leiter, 65, is originally from the United States and currently lives in a settlement in the occupied West Bank.

Close to the US Republican Party, Leiter used to be one of the leaders of the Yesha Council, an umbrella group representing Israeli settlers in the West Bank in the 1990s.

He is also a member of Netanyahu's Likud party and currently works as a strategic adviser to Israeli think tanks.

His son, Moshe Leiter, was killed in combat in November 2023 in the Gaza Strip, where war erupted between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas after its attack on southern Israel in October last year.

Yechiel Leiter will take on the ambassador role after Trump's inauguration next year, succeeding Mike Herzog, President Isaac Herzog's brother, who was appointed in 2021.

Leiter is a fierce critic of US President Joe Biden, slamming "American pressure" during the war in Gaza in an interview with private Israeli channel Tov in January.

Israel welcomed Huckabee's nomination this month, as he is a stalwart supporter of the country's government.

In 2017, he was present in Maale Adumim for the expansion of one of Israel's largest settlements in the West Bank.