Defense Minister Israel Katz announced this morning his decision to close the Israeli Army Radio station, known in Hebrew as Galei Tzahal or Galatz. Shortly after that announcement, the Histadrut’s IDF Civil Servants Workers’ Union announced a labor dispute at the station, which applies to the 100 or so civilian employees who work at the station.
Katz said that the station, which had about 900,000 daily listeners as of 2024, would stop operating by March 1, 2026. The station is one of the popular sources of radio news broadcasts in Israel, although israelis on both the right and the left have at times criticized the station for being politically unbalanced.
Galei Tzahal’s music-focused sister station, Galgalatz, is expected to continue operations as usual.
The minister said that he would bring the decision for government approval in accordance with the standard procedure, and that he intends to establish a professional team within the Ministry of Defense to implement the closure. The team will deal, among other things, with assisting the station’s employees—civilian workers employed by the military—who are expected to lose their jobs, and will also help regulate the future operations of the Galgalatz station.
In his statement, Katz said that Galei Tzahal was established by the Government of Israel as a military station intended to serve as a voice and an ear for soldiers and their families—“and not as a platform for expressing opinions, many of which attack the IDF and the soldiers of the IDF themselves.”
“In the past two years, throughout the war, many soldiers and civilians—including bereaved family members—have frequently complained that they feel the station does not represent them and even harms the war effort and morale,” Katz said. “Worse still, our enemies interpret these messages as messages conveyed by the IDF.”
Katz further added that “the operation of a civilian radio station by the army is an anomaly that has no parallel in any democratic country in the world.”
Histadrut response
In its announcement of a labor dispute, the IDF Civil Servants Workers’ Union said that the decision to close Galei Tzahal was made unilaterally and without negotiation regarding its impact on the workers, “despite the fact that the decision has significant implications for the rights and working conditions of the employees, including their job security due to expected terminations.”
The union described such a unilateral move as “conduct that is lacking in good faith and aggressive, particularly considering that agreements had already been reached between the IDF Civil Servants Workers’ Union and the Ministry of Defense regarding a structural change at the station.”
The organization also referred to “the demand of the workers’ representatives that the recommendations of the committee for examining the operations of Galei Tzahal, which submitted its conclusions, not be implemented, due to the instruction of the attorney general.”
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara ordered that the committee—appointed by the Defense Minister and which recommended closing the station or canceling its news broadcasts—not submit its recommendations until the claims regarding flaws in the appointment process of its members are examined. Baharav-Miara determined that “the work of the committee raises concern over political interference in public broadcasting.”
In recent months, Galei Tzhal began implementing some of the recommendations of previous committees that dealt with changes demanded of it, so that it would include more content relevant to soldiers and less current-affairs programming. In light of the composition of the current committee whose recommendations Katz adopted, there was serious concern within Galei Tzahal that Katz had decided in advance to close the station.
Last September, an emergency conference was held to save the station, attended by past and present employees of the station and journalists from most of the broadcast media outlets, as a show of support for the station.
Meir Ben Harush, chair of the IDF Civil Servants Workers’ Union, said that he met with the defense minister, who “unfortunately remained firm in his opinion to close the station.”
“The minister pledged to protect the station’s employees,” Ben Harush said. “Negotiations will be held regarding the future of the workers, and alongside that, he recommended continuing the operations of Galgalatz. This is a mistaken decision; together we will act with the Histadrut, and I will do everything to preserve the employment security and future of the workers.”
