Israeli’s Shin Bet chief alleges Netanyahu demanded illegal operations

Israel’s domestic intelligence chief, Ronen Bar, has accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of attempting to remove him for refusing to carry out unlawful actions intended to serve Netanyahu’s personal and political interests.

In an affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court on Monday, Ronen Bar, chief of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence service, claimed Netanyahu’s effort to fire him—temporarily blocked by the court—was not due to a loss of trust over the October 2023 Hamas attack, as Netanyahu suggested, but rather stemmed from a series of events between November 2024 and February 2025.

The controversy has sparked major protests, with demonstrators accusing the prime minister of threatening the country's democracy, Al Jazeera reported.

In the unclassified section of his court filing, Ronen Bar indicated that Prime Minister Netanyahu had, on multiple occasions, pressured him to have the Shin Bet act against Israelis involved in anti-government protests, with an emphasis on tracking the protests’ sources of funding.

Bar also mentioned that he had declined to approve a security-related request that would have exempted Netanyahu from appearing in his ongoing corruption trial, where he faces serious charges including bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.

Netanyahu’s attempt to dismiss Bar coincided with an active Shin Bet investigation into financial connections between the prime minister’s office and Qatar, a central mediator in the Gaza conflict. Critics argue that the move to fire Bar appears compromised by a conflict of interest and may have been intended to disrupt that inquiry.

Shin Bet was also conducting a separate investigation into whether the government had disregarded advance warnings ahead of the Hamas assault on southern Israel on October 7, 2023—a devastating attack in which the group killed over 1,100 people and abducted around 250 others. More than 50 of those hostages are still believed to be held in Gaza.

Prime Minister Netanyahu and the hardline parties in his coalition have come under intense criticism for their refusal to reach a ceasefire deal that could secure the hostages' release. Meanwhile, the Israeli military onslaught in Gaza has resulted in the deaths of over 51,000 people, according to figures from Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

Netanyahu’s office dismissed Bar’s affidavit as entirely false and later pushed back against specific accusations, asserting that Bar had significantly failed in his role during the Hamas attack.

It also denied that the attempt to dismiss Ronen Bar was connected to efforts to obstruct the so-called “Qatargate” investigation. Instead, it claimed that the investigation itself was being used as a tactic to block the dismissal. 

Netanyahu’s move to remove Bar was temporarily halted by the Supreme Court after opposition politicians and government watchdogs challenged its legality. The controversy has intensified public anger, adding to the widespread protests over the government’s inability to secure the release of hostages still held in Gaza.

Bar, for his part, has acknowledged Shin Bet’s failure to prevent the Hamas attack and stated on Monday that he plans to soon announce when he will step down.