The High Court of Justice is set to convene on Tuesday for a follow-up hearing on petitions against the government’s decision to close Army Radio, as Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara argued that the move cannot be viewed as a narrow decision about one military station, but as part of a wider government effort affecting Israel’s free press.
The hearing will be held before Justices Dafna Barak-Erez, Alex Stein, and Yechiel Kasher, after the court ordered the government in February to explain why its December decision to shutter the 75-year-old station should not be canceled.
The court’s conditional order focused on the way the decision was made, rather than only on whether the government had the authority to make it. The decision was originally set to take effect on March 1, but was frozen by an interim court order pending judicial review.
Baharav-Miara did not file a new substantive position ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, instead telling the court that her January response should be treated as her main arguments.
In that position, the attorney-general said the decision to close Galatz suffers from fundamental legal defects: first, because such a major change to Israel’s media landscape should be anchored in primary legislation, and second, because the decision-making process itself was flawed.
The case concerns a government decision approved on December 22, 2025, which ordered the closure of Army Radio and the end of its broadcasts within roughly two months.
The station reaches close to one million listeners a day
The move followed recommendations by an advisory committee appointed by Defense Minister Israel Katz.
The government has argued that Army Radio is an anomaly: a military unit, funded by the state, that also operates as a national news and current-affairs broadcaster. Katz has argued that there is no justification for a military station to engage in political and public affairs broadcasting.
But Baharav-Miara argued that Galatz, whatever its unusual origins, has long since become part of Israel’s public broadcasting system.
According to estimates cited in her filing, the station reaches close to one million listeners a day and is one of only two nationwide Hebrew public radio stations with a full news desk and current-affairs programming.
That, she argued, means the government cannot treat its closure as a simple internal military or administrative matter.
In plain terms, the attorney-general’s argument is this: When the government wants to remove a major public media outlet from airwaves, especially one that broadcasts news and criticism of the government and the military, it must do so through the Knesset and after a serious, careful process – not through a cabinet decision passed on a short timetable.
Her position, however, also places the closure inside a much broader context. The Attorney-General warned that the decision comes amid a series of government and legislative moves affecting Israeli media, including efforts concerning the public broadcaster, commercial news regulation, and government conduct toward media outlets critical of it.
She argued that these moves, taken together, raise serious concerns over pressure on independent journalism and could create a chilling effect on other media bodies.
The attorney-general’s position does not deny that Galatz is unusual. On the contrary, she acknowledged that a military station broadcasting news and criticism of the government and army is an “anomalous” product of Israel’s history.
But, she argued, that history also matters. After more than 75 years, Galatz is no longer only a military unit. It is also a functioning public broadcaster, part of what she described as the “ecosystem” of Israeli journalism.
Katz adopted the harsher option
The government’s decision also came after a previous committee, appointed in 2023 by then-defense minister Yoav Gallant and headed by then-Defense Ministry director-general Eyal Zamir, recommended keeping the station inside the IDF while introducing reforms meant to reduce the tension between its military framework and journalistic work.
Baharav-Miara argued that those reforms were still being implemented when Katz appointed a new committee in 2025, which ultimately recommended either closing the station’s news and current-affairs division or closing the station entirely.
Katz adopted the harsher option.
The petitioners argue that this sequence matters. Their claim is not only that the government reached the wrong outcome, but that it failed to properly explain why one professional process was abandoned and replaced by another that reached the opposite conclusion within a short time.
A separate petition filed by the Army Radio workers’ committee and the Histadrut labor federation focuses on the employees who would be directly affected by the closure.
According to their filing, Galatz employs 84 civilian IDF workers, including journalists, editors, technicians, and producers, some of whom have worked at the station for decades. The filing also said that some 50 additional workers are employed as consultants.
For those employees, the petitioners said, the government decision means dismissal and loss of livelihood.
The workers’ committee and Histadrut argued that the state, acting both as sovereign and as employer, was required to consult meaningfully with workers’ representatives before making such a decision. They said that did not happen.
According to their filing, the government did not present the workers with a real closure plan, did not examine alternatives with them, and did not hold substantive negotiations before approving the move.
They argued that one worker’s representative was briefly heard in a way that amounted to “marking a V.”
The workers’ petition also claims that the advisory committee’s process was tainted by prior public statements made by some of its members against Galatz.
The petitioners cited, among other things, alleged comments and reposts portraying the station as hostile to the state. Those claims are presented by the petitioners as evidence that the committee had effectively reached its conclusion before properly examining the issue.
The government’s full position for Tuesday’s hearing had not yet been filed.
The court said earlier that the government must explain how the decision was formulated, what considerations were weighed, and whether the process met the standards required of administrative action.
That means Tuesday’s hearing is expected to focus less on whether Galatz should exist in its current form, and more on a more basic question: whether the government did the work required before deciding to shut down a national broadcaster, silence a major public media outlet, and send dozens of workers home.
