Yair Netanyahu, the eldest son of the Israeli prime minister, has changed his name over the past year and a half and is now registered with the Israeli authorities under the name “Yonatan Han,” as the Netanyahu family name has become internationally reviled over genocide and other atrocities.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the change was uncovered through Israeli tax authority records, which list the new name alongside his identification number.
According to the report, tax-withholding certificates issued in December 2024 were still registered under his previous name, Yair Netanyahu.
This year, however, the same identification number appeared under the name “Yonatan Han,” with a fictional address listed as “Balfour 0.”
The reported name change comes as Benjamin Netanyahu faces mounting political, legal, and diplomatic pressure amid growing international condemnation over Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
Yair Netanyahu has also come under scrutiny over his business ties in the United States and a series of controversies involving the family’s relationships with wealthy individuals.
In 2018, Israeli television aired a recording in which Yair appeared to boast outside a strip club that his father had helped advance a multibillion-dollar natural gas deal benefiting a wealthy tycoon.
He has also been linked to a number of business ventures in the United States, including within far-right circles.
Benjamin Netanyahu himself is facing three corruption cases in the occupied territories.
The Israeli prime minister is also the subject of an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant over war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip.
In 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former war minister, Yoav Gallant, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the use of starvation as a method of warfare during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
Earlier this month, dozens of British lawmakers called on the UK government to impose sanctions on Netanyahu and his ministers over Israel’s torture of Palestinian civilians.
In a letter addressed to UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, at least 71 MPs and peers from across the political spectrum said the “systematic and well-documented torture of Palestinian civilians lies with the government of Israel, including prime minister Netanyahu.”
Several countries have also called on the European Union to suspend its Association Agreement with Israel, citing repeated violations of international law.
In a report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in March, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, said “the Israeli prison system has degenerated into a laboratory of calculated cruelty,” documenting abuses that included the rape of Palestinians.
Meanwhile, investigative reports indicate that this is not the first time members of the Netanyahu family have changed their surname.
Yair’s brother, Avner, changed his name to Avi Segal about five years ago. Under that name, he purchased an apartment in Oxford, England, for $672,000 in cash.
Benjamin Netanyahu himself also used a different name while living in the United States in the 1980s, Ben Nitai, later saying he had considered settling in America.
The practice dates back even further. Netanyahu’s father, Benzion Mileikowsky, changed his surname to Netanyahu after emigrating from Poland to take part in the Zionist movement’s colonization of historic Palestine during the British Mandate in the 1920s.
