Israel’s cabinet has approved the creation of a national guard, paving the way for the establishment of a force long demanded by the country’s ultranationalist national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised Ben-Gvir’s extreme-right Jewish Power party the force would be set up as part of a coalition deal between their parties in the wake of last year’s parliamentary election. But critics have denounced the proposed body as a “militia”.

The cabinet said on Sunday that the new force would deal with “national emergency situations” similar to those in May 2021, when violence erupted in Israel’s mixed cities — which have Jewish and Arab populations — as Israel fought an 11-day war with Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

Ben-Gvir, a settler previously convicted of inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organisation, has long argued for a national guard, saying it was needed to combat lawlessness and ease pressures on an overstretched police force.

However, civil rights groups and opposition politicians fear it could be used to target Palestinian citizens of Israel and quell political dissent, and have expressed alarm about the prospect of such a force being subordinate to Ben-Gvir, who until a couple of years ago kept a picture in his house of a Jewish supremacist who gunned down 29 Palestinians in a mosque in 1994.

Several hundred people took to the streets in Tel Aviv to protest after Ben-Gvir’s party published details of its proposals last week.

Ayman Odeh, an Arab lawmaker who leads the Hadash-Ta’al list, warned last week that the plan would create a “militia” that was “another tangible threat to the democratic space”, adding: “It must be stopped.”

Yair Lapid, leader of the country’s largest opposition party Yesh Atid, lambasted the announcement on Sunday, accusing the government of having “ridiculous” priorities and financing “a private army of thugs” for Ben-Gvir.

“The only thing that interests [this government] is trampling on democracy and advancing the extreme fantasies of delusional people,” he said.

Israel’s police commissioner Kobi Shabtai has also expressed concern, warning in a letter to Ben-Gvir that was leaked to local media that the new body would be “nothing but a waste of resources”, was based on an untested model and could undermine security.

The cabinet said in a statement on Sunday that the new body would be created in Ben-Gvir’s ministry but that “the responsibilities of — and control over — the national guard” would be discussed by a committee involving all Israel’s security agencies and the “relevant government ministries”.

It added that the committee would report within 90 days and would “propose whether the national guard will be subordinate to the Israel Police Inspector General or to another body”.

The previous government began setting up a national guard to cope with domestic political violence after the clashes in May 2021, but lost power before it could complete the process.