A month after he stopped being P.M Netanyahu vacated the official residence on Balfour Street

About a month after he stopped being prime minister and about 12 years after he began his second term in office, the longest in the history of Israeli governments, opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu vacated the official residence on Balfour Street in Jerusalem on Saturday night.
The Netanyahu family left the residence shortly after midnight. Netanyahu agreed on the current evacuation of the center with his successor, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, but then the two agreed that he would vacate the center by Saturday. Prior to the evacuation, one transport truck left the residence hall on Thursday, and another transport truck will leave this morning. The Netanyahu family will live in their private home in Caesarea until the renovation of their home on Gaza Street in the capital, where the Netanyahu couple and their children lived until they entered the prime minister's residence in 2009.
Prime Minister Bennett's family will not move to the prime minister's residence on Balfour Street, and will continue to live in her private home in Raanana. Bennett himself intends to sleep in the daycare several times a week, especially on days when he will finish work late. It is estimated that he sleeps at home in Balfour no more than two or three times a week. However, he intends to hold official meetings at the venue.
When the Netanyahu family leaves the house, it will undergo a renovation that includes plaster, paint and cleaning. At the same time, the GSS sought to carry out renovations under security circumstances at a cost of between NIS 10 million and NIS 15 million. The GSS 'request includes improved home protection and other measures. In recent years, a plan has been prepared to renovate the house in Balfour, which will also be budgeted in millions of shekels and even set a date, but things got stuck because of the election and after the Netanyahu family conditioned the departure from Balfour in favor of the renovation by the state renovating the house in Caesarea.
In recent years, the prime minister's official residence in Jerusalem has become a symbol, especially in light of the many demonstrations near him against Netanyahu, following suspicions against him that later became an indictment. After Netanyahu ceased to be prime minister, some of his prominent opponents demanded that he quickly vacate the official residence. Netanyahu's associates responded with their own allegations, according to which even his predecessor in office, Ehud Olmert, took many weeks to evacuate the center.
 Olmert rejected these claims and told Ynet last month: "To the best of my recollection, we left after four or five days, I do not remember exactly. But not beyond that." According to articles from that period, Olmert moved from Balfour to a house he bought in Motza, "immediately after Passover," which then took place on April 9. That is, about 10 days after the inauguration of the government.
Last month, even before the agreement reached between Netanyahu and Bennett on the evacuation now, it was reported that a few hours before the new government was sworn in, a large consignment of soft drinks arrived at the Balfour residence worth NIS 6,000 - at the expense of the state coffers.
According to sources in the Prime Minister's Office, the shipment was ordered that day, a few hours before, under the direction of the Prime Minister's Legal Adviser, Shlomit Fargo Barnea, the state stopped financing the Netanyahu family's food expenses. According to these sources, the person who ordered the shipment wanted to take advantage of the fact that the expense account is still being paid by the state.
The Prime Minister's Residence, named "Balfour", has been the home of the Israeli Prime Minister since 1974. "Beit Agion" is located in the Talbiyeh neighborhood on the border of the Rehavia neighborhood in Jerusalem at 9 Smolenskin Street, corner of Balfour Street. The street actually has three exits: Balfour Street, Smolenskin and Ben-Maimon Boulevards that connect to the Gaza Road.
The building is covered with Jerusalem stone, and inside it is an inner courtyard - a patio - where all the events at the Prime Minister's Residence take place - whether for press conferences with heads of state or a meeting with ministers and MKs or branch heads whom the prime minister invites to meetings.
The house was built for a Greek-Jewish merchant named Edward Agion, one of Alexandria's richest men in the 1930s. The house was designed by the architect Richard Kaufman, and was built between 1936 and 1938. In 1941 he lived in the house of the King of Yugoslavia Peter II for two months, and during the War of Independence Agion allowed the building to be used for the benefit of a hospital for Etzel fighters.