Avner Netanyahu quietly paid £502,000 cash for an apartment in England using a different name

Avner Netanyahu, the son of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, purchased an apartment in England, in a city near London, under the name Avi Avner Segal. The apartment, located on a residential street in the city, was purchased in 2022 for £502,500, according to the HM Land Registry. The full amount was paid to the seller without any lien imposed on the property, meaning no loan or mortgage was taken out to purchase the apartment.

Shortly after purchasing the apartment, the prime minister’s son (who at the time was the leader of the opposition) began his master’s degree at Regent’s Park College, Oxford. Netanyahu Jr. also enrolled in his degree program, in Near Eastern history and archaeology, under his new name, concealing his connection to his father. On his profile page on the college’s internal website, his name appears as Avi Segal, and this name is also used in his college email address. Avner returned to Israel after one year of studies, following the start of the war on October 7, 2023, and is currently working at the strategic consulting firm Strategy&, part of the accounting firm PwC.

Under Israeli law, in 2022, the obligation to report overseas property to the Israeli Tax Authority applied to properties worth more than two million shekels. At the time of the transaction in 2022, the pound-to-shekel exchange rate hit a historic low, with one pound worth only 3.93 shekels. According to this rate, the purchase price of the apartment was 1.97 million shekels, just below the threshold requiring disclosure (unless the property generates rental income). The pound’s decline accelerated during Liz Truss’s brief tenure as British Prime Minister, which caused market turmoil. Had the apartment been purchased ten days earlier or later, its value would have exceeded two million shekels, triggering mandatory reporting to the tax authorities.

According to Avner Netanyahu, in a conversation with him, the name change was official and valid on all his identification documents. “I changed my name on my ID card at the Ministry of Interior in Israel, and then changed, among other things, my passport and driver’s license. It’s a package deal, you can’t change it here or there; it doesn’t work like that, not at the Ministry of Interior, not at the National Insurance Institute, not at the Tax Authority. No one works like that. I didn’t have security at the time, and I knew that if I walked around with that name (Netanyahu) in another country with Muslims, I’d get stabbed by the first person who heard it at a train station. All my conduct was legal, both here and there.”

And what about the purchase of a two-million-shekel apartment without a mortgage by a 27-year-old?

“It’s really no one’s business, especially when (my father) wasn’t in office at the time… We reported everything that was necessary to the tax authorities in Israel and the UK, we’re fully compliant with all relevant authorities and things have either been handled or will be handled. I deal with all the authorities as required. I’ll do whatever I’m asked to do.”

What is the source of the money?

“The source is them.”

“Them?” Meaning your parents?

“Them. And I don’t apologize for that.”

It should be noted that in 2022, the Ministerial Committee for Shin Bet Affairs rejected Benjamin Netanyahu’s request for security protection for his son Avner while he was studying abroad, based on the assessment of security officials that it was unnecessary.

According to Israeli law, one may change their name on an ID card only once every seven years, so Avner’s official name is now Segal, not Netanyahu. He adopted this surname because it was the surname of his grandmother Tzila, Benjamin Netanyahu’s mother. The community of Israelis studying at Oxford at the time also knew the name he had adopted, and he explained to fellow Israelis that he used his grandmother’s surname.

Avner Netanyahu is not the first in his family to adopt a different name abroad. In the 1970s, his father, Benjamin Netanyahu, lived and studied for about four years in the United States under the American name he adopted: Benjamin Nitai. Avner’s brother, Yair Netanyahu, did not officially change his name, but for a time identified himself on social media as “Yair Hun.” Hun was the original surname of Shmuel Ben-Artzi, Sara Netanyahu’s father.

This is not the first overseas property purchased by the Netanyahu family in recent years. According to the New Haven Independent, a company founded by Yair Netanyahu, Avner’s older brother, bought a property in New Haven, Connecticut, USA this year. The property is worth $325,000, and the company, Heritage Y.N. Israel, took out a $275,000 mortgage to purchase it.

Yair Netanyahu was summoned on Monday to testify at Lahav 433 as part of an ongoing investigation into the issuance of diplomatic passports to those who were not entitled to them. It is suspected that he was issued a diplomatic passport without proper justification, which the Shin Bet did not approve.

The Netanyahu family owns three homes in Israel worth tens of millions of shekels combined: the first is the villa in Caesarea, which, according to the Tax Authority, was purchased in April 2002 for 8.6 million shekels. The second is the penthouse on Aza Road in Jerusalem, which, along with the Caesarea home, is defined as the prime minister’s official residence, and the maintenance of both is funded by the state. The third property is a house on HaPortzim Street in the Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem, where Benjamin Netanyahu grew up. His parents bequeathed it to him and his brother Ido. In 2015, businessman Spencer Partrich, a close associate of the prime minister, purchased Ido Netanyahu’s share for 8 million shekels, so the value of the Katamon house was estimated at 16 million shekels.

the time of the transaction in 2022, the pound-to-shekel exchange rate hit a historic low, with one pound worth only 3.93 shekels. According to this rate, the purchase price of the apartment was 1.97 million shekels, just below the threshold requiring disclosure (unless the property generates rental income). The pound’s decline accelerated during Liz Truss’s brief tenure as British Prime Minister, which caused market turmoil. Had the apartment been purchased ten days earlier or later, its value would have exceeded two million shekels, triggering mandatory reporting to the tax authorities.

According to Avner Netanyahu, in a conversation with him, the name change was official and valid on all his identification documents. “I changed my name on my ID card at the Ministry of Interior in Israel, and then changed, among other things, my passport and driver’s license. It’s a package deal, you can’t change it here or there; it doesn’t work like that, not at the Ministry of Interior, not at the National Insurance Institute, not at the Tax Authority. No one works like that. I didn’t have security at the time, and I knew that if I walked around with that name (Netanyahu) in another country with Muslims, I’d get stabbed by the first person who heard it at a train station. All my conduct was legal, both here and there.”

And what about the purchase of a two-million-shekel apartment without a mortgage by a 27-year-old?

“It’s really no one’s business, especially when (my father) wasn’t in office at the time… We reported everything that was necessary to the tax authorities in Israel and the UK, we’re fully compliant with all relevant authorities and things have either been handled or will be handled. I deal with all the authorities as required. I’ll do whatever I’m asked to do.”

What is the source of the money?

“The source is them.”

“Them?” Meaning your parents?

“Them. And I don’t apologize for that.”

It should be noted that in 2022, the Ministerial Committee for Shin Bet Affairs rejected Benjamin Netanyahu’s request for security protection for his son Avner while he was studying abroad, based on the assessment of security officials that it was unnecessary.

According to Israeli law, one may change their name on an ID card only once every seven years, so Avner’s official name is now Segal, not Netanyahu. He adopted this surname because it was the surname of his grandmother Tzila, Benjamin Netanyahu’s mother. The community of Israelis studying at Oxford at the time also knew the name he had adopted, and he explained to fellow Israelis that he used his grandmother’s surname.

Avner Netanyahu is not the first in his family to adopt a different name abroad. In the 1970s, his father, Benjamin Netanyahu, lived and studied for about four years in the United States under the American name he adopted: Benjamin Nitai. Avner’s brother, Yair Netanyahu, did not officially change his name, but for a time identified himself on social media as “Yair Hun.” Hun was the original surname of Shmuel Ben-Artzi, Sara Netanyahu’s father.

This is not the first overseas property purchased by the Netanyahu family in recent years. According to the New Haven Independent, a company founded by Yair Netanyahu, Avner’s older brother, bought a property in New Haven, Connecticut, USA this year. The property is worth $325,000, and the company, Heritage Y.N. Israel, took out a $275,000 mortgage to purchase it.

Yair Netanyahu was summoned on Monday to testify at Lahav 433 as part of an ongoing investigation into the issuance of diplomatic passports to those who were not entitled to them. It is suspected that he was issued a diplomatic passport without proper justification, which the Shin Bet did not approve.

The Netanyahu family owns three homes in Israel worth tens of millions of shekels combined: the first is the villa in Caesarea, which, according to the Tax Authority, was purchased in April 2002 for 8.6 million shekels. The second is the penthouse on Aza Road in Jerusalem, which, along with the Caesarea home, is defined as the prime minister’s official residence, and the maintenance of both is funded by the state. The third property is a house on HaPortzim Street in the Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem, where Benjamin Netanyahu grew up. His parents bequeathed it to him and his brother Ido. In 2015, businessman Spencer Partrich, a close associate of the prime minister, purchased Ido Netanyahu’s share for 8 million shekels, so the value of the Katamon house was estimated at 16 million shekels.