Navarone (Nava in Hebrew) Jacobs posted on her Facebook page that she was sexually harassed by Gantz when she was 14 and they were studying at the Kfar Hayarok boarding school in central Israel. At the time, Jacobs was a freshman and Gantz was a senior.Channel 13 was the first news outlet to publicize the allegations.
Gantz denied the allegations saying they are political libel and hinted that they were initiated by the Likud.
“A blatant lie,” Blue and White said in a statement. “Yesterday it was a blood libel, over the graves of fallen soldiers. Tonight it is baseless slander about Benny and his days at Hakfar Hayarok in the 1970s. The political incitement has reached a new low. We are pursuing legal action.”
The Likud rejected Blue and White’s accusation against the party, saying in a statement, “The Likud is not connected to the publication about Benny Gantz on social media.”
A former IDF chief of staff, Gantz is the chairman of the newly-formed Blue and White Party. According to polls, the party has the strongest chance of defeating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud in the elections on April 9.
In a letter to Jacobs, an attorney for Gantz said the timing of her post proves that political interests had sent her in order to hurt Gantz’s campaign.
Speaking to The Jerusalem Post in an exclusive interview from New York, Jacobs said that she went to the Kfar Hayarok barnyard “to visit the cows,” and Gantz appeared out of nowhere and pulled down his pants, revealing his penis. She said that he moved toward her and that she felt “in danger,” but a friend intervened and “he never touched me, not at all.”
The friend pulled Gantz away from Jacobs, according to her post. Jacobs said she will never forget his eyes when he looked at her.
“For many years, I remembered the terrifying and threatening eyes when he looked at me and held his erect penis in front of me,” Jacobs wrote.
She described Gantz as around the age of 17 or 18 and bigger than most teenagers. She said she was paralyzed with fear when he approached her with a look of a “wild animal,” laughing throughout the incident.
Kfar Hayarok confirmed that Gantz and Jacobs overlapped at the school. The school’s CEO, Dr. Kobi Naveh, said “we are very proud of him. I have no doubt that we are dealing with a moral and straight-forward person,” noting that he does not believe that Gantz is capable of such behavior.