Israel’s supreme court has frozen the decision of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to fire the head of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency amid protests against the move.
The order will remain in place until the court can hear the petitions that have been filed by Israel’s opposition and an NGO against the dismissal of Ronen Bar, who was sacked after an overnight vote by the government.
The Shin Bet has been investigating Netanyahu’s close aides for alleged breaches of national security, including leaking classified documents to foreign media and allegedly taking money from Qatar, which is known to have given significant financial aid to Hamas.
In a letter made public late on Thursday, Bar said his dismissal was motivated by Netanyahu’s “personal interests”. The security chief referred to the conclusions drawn by his agency’s investigation into the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, which said “a policy of quiet had enabled Hamas to undergo massive military buildup”.
He added: “The dismissal of the head of the service at this time at the initiative of the prime minister sends a message to all those involved, a message that could put the optimal outcome of the investigation at risk. This is a direct danger to the security of the state of Israel.”
The court ruling said the freeze on his dismissal would remain until the appeals were presented to the court before 8 April.
According to the earlier government statement announcing his dismissal, Bar was supposed to leave his post when his successor was appointed, or by 10 April at the latest.
Bar, whose tenure was meant to end next year, was appointed by the previous Israeli government, which briefly forced Netanyahu from power between June 2021 and December 2022.
His relations with the prime minister had been strained even before the 7 October Hamas attack, which sparked the war in Gaza, notably over proposed judicial reforms that had split the country. Relations worsened after the 4 March release of the internal Shin Bet report on the attack, which acknowledged the agency’s own failures but also pointed to wider policy issues in the run-up.
In a statement on Friday, a Netanyahu spokesperson said: “The Israeli government, which is in charge of the Shin Bet, has lost all confidence in Ronen Bar, who continues to cling to his seat while cynically using the families of the kidnapped and politically incorrect use of his position to fabricate futile, unfounded investigations.
“Ronen had the opportunity to retire with honour after his searing failure on October 7 … But [he] preferred not to attend the government meeting dealing with his case.”
A series of high-ranking officials seen as responsible for mistakes and misjudgments in the period before the Hamas attack have resigned. Netanyahu himself has not accepted any responsibility for Israel’s worst ever security disaster, in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed, and has resisted calls for a powerful commission of inquiry.
After the government vote against Bar, Israel’s opposition and an NGO said on Friday they had filed a petition against the decision. Their initiative was upheld by the supreme court, ruling as the high court of justice on state decisions, which subsequently issued a temporary injunction.
The NGO, the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, had denounced “an unlawful decision … posing a real risk to the national security of the state of Israel”, while the opposition leader Yair Lapid’s centre-right party denounced what it called “a decision based on flagrant conflict of interest”.
The communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, said in response to the ruling that the judges had no right to interfere in the government’s decision to fire Bar.
“Bar will end his tenure on April 10 or earlier, with the appointment of a permanent head of the Shin Bet,” he said. “You have no legal authority to interfere in this. This is the government’s authority. Your order is void.”
A former head of the Shin Bet, Yoram Cohen, on Friday condemned Bar’s sacking in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12, and alleged that the prime minister had compelled him to carry out acts of questionable legitimacy when he was in charge of the agency.
He has previously alleged that in 2011 Netanyahu asked him to wiretap the government’s top defence officials to ensure that “they were not leaking information from a particularly sensitive security meeting”, the Times of Israel reported.
In a separate move on Friday, Netanyahu’s cabinet said it would debate on Sunday a motion of no confidence in the attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, accusing her of acting “as the long arm of the government’s opponents”.
Baharav-Miara previously warned Netanyahu he could not fire Bar before her office had reviewed his motives for doing so.
Netanyahu is facing a potential jail sentence at the conclusion of an ongoing corruption trial. The 75-year-old politician, who came to power for the first time in 1996 and has served 17 years as prime minister, is giving evidence twice weekly.
On Friday, hundreds of demonstrators protested for a fourth consecutive day against the move to sack Bar, joining protesters angry at the decision to resume fighting in Gaza while 59 Israeli hostages remain in the Palestinian territory.
