Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly urged Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chief Ronen Bar to resign from his position, N12 news site reported on Sunday evening.
In a contentious meeting last Thursday, the prime minister reportedly told Bar that the government had “…waited for the Shin Bet investigations, and now it’s time to hand over the keys.”
Bar refused to resign and told Netanyahu that if he wanted him gone, then he would have to fire him, according to the N12 report, which did not site a source.
The Israeli media outlet reported that the meeting ended without agreement on whether a new Security Agency head would be chosen.
Government, Shin Bet disagree on process
The Prime Minister’s Office said that Netanyahu’s decision to hire a new Shin Bet chief was well within his governmental power.
“The one who appoints the Shin Bet chief is the government – and not the acting Shin Bet chief,” the Prime Minister’s Office wrote to N12 in response to the report. “This has always been the case in a democratic state.”
The Shin Bet disputed the office’s claim that Bar wanted to appoint his successor.
“The head of Shin Bet never said he would appoint his successor. For decades, it has been customary that the deputy head of the agency is considered for the position of director, subject to the prime minister’s decision,” the agency told N12.
N12 previously reported that the Shin Bet head said that he’d only resign when all of the remaining hostages were returned from Gaza. He has also said that he would resign once an official state inquiry into the October 7 massacre was established.
The Shin Bet released their probes on the massacre last week, prompting renewed calls for a government-led investigation.
After the Security Agency released its investigation, a statement that was attributed to the prime minister claimed that Bar “misread the intelligence picture and was trapped in a misguided perception,” The Jerusalem Post reported.
“Bar unequivocally asserted that Hamas sought to avoid a confrontation with Israel. He even saw potential for long-term stability in Gaza if Israel provided it with a positive economic outlook,” the statement read.
“In addition to all this, the Shin Bet director did not see fit to wake the prime minister on the night of the attack – the most fundamental and essential decision imaginable,” it said.
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