Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu announced on Sunday, March 16, his intention to dismiss the head of the internal security services, Ronen Bar, claiming that he no longer trusts him at a critical moment while negotiations with Hamas on a truce in Gaza are deadlocked.
“I decided to propose to the government the end of the mandate of Shin Bet,” he said in a video declaration broadcast by his services, stressing the need to “restore the organization, reach all our war goals and prevent the next disaster”, in reference to the bloody attack of Hamas on October 7, 2023.
“Permanently, but especially during such an existential war, there must be total confidence between the Prime Minister and the head of the Shin Bet,” says Benyamin Netanyahu. “Unfortunately […] I do not have this confidence, “he continued. His proposal should be accepted by the government, but the left opposition has already announced that it would dispute the decision to the Supreme Court.
The general prosecutor of Israel, Gali Baharav-Miara, notified her reservations to Benyamin Netanyahu. “It is not possible to start this process before the factual and legal foundations of your decision are fully clarified,” she said in a letter. The prosecutor, who is also the government’s legal adviser, evokes “the exceptional sensitivity” of this unprecedented affair “.
Execrable relations
In a statement, Ronen Bar said that the decision was “not linked” to the attack on Hamas and suggested that Benyamin Netanyahu’s “lack of confidence” came from his refusal to comply with his requests for “personal loyalty”. He intends to stay at his post “in the near future, due to the risks of climbing, the serious security tension and the real possibility of a resumption of hostilities” in the Gaza Strip, he said in a press release.
Relations between the two men were notoriously tense before the bloody attack of the Palestinian Islamist movement, in particular because of a justice reform project which caused monster protest demonstrations in early 2023.
They became execrable after the publication, on March 4, of an internal investigation report on October 7. The agency recognizes flaws in the collection of information that could have alerted the authorities to the scope of the attack. But she also criticizes the executive, and Benyamin Netanyahu indirectly, judging that a “(Israeli) policy of calm allowed Hamas to build an impressive military arsenal”. This investigation, added Ronen Bar on Sunday, also asked the question of “prolonged and deliberate contempt at the political level of the agency alerts” before the attack.
According to the media, the Shin Bet also investigates two collaborators of Benyamin Netanyahu suspected of having received funds from Qatar, which welcomed Hamas’ political leadership, before and even during the war in Gaza.
The Prime Minister recently accused Ronen Bar, appointed in 2021 and who was to leave his post in 2026, of being the source of a “campaign of threats and leaks in the media” carried out in order to “prevent it from making the necessary decisions to put the Shin Bet from the Shin Bet”.
“Better late than never”
This announcement, praised by the allies of Benyamin Netanyahu in the most right government in the history of Israel, intervenes at a critical moment. The indirect negotiations trample between Israel and Hamas on the continuation of the truce agreement in Gaza, which entered into force after more than fifteen months of war which devastated the Palestinian territory. Of the 251 people kidnapped in the bloody attack in Hamas in southern Israel, there are 58 hostages retained in Gaza, 34 of which were declared dead by the Israeli army.
“Better late than never,” said the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, a figure in the far right, referring to his responsibility in security loails before October 7 and “important disagreements in recent months between October 7 in a statement in a statement in recent months between October 7 in recent months between last months between [Ronen Bar] And the political leaders “. The leader of the left opposition, Yaïr Lapid, on the contrary castigated Benyamin Netanyahu who” lost his composure and his values ”.