Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced Sunday that the government will vote this week on the dismissal of Ronen Bar, director of the Shin Bet (Internal Intelligence Service), the agency investigating the president's possible involvement in the scandal known as "Qatargate."
According to a statement, Netanyahu met with Bar today to inform him that he will submit a formal proposal for his dismissal to the security cabinet.
“We are in the midst of a war for our very existence: a war on seven fronts. At all times, but especially in such an existential war, the prime minister must have full confidence in the head of the Shin Bet,” Netanyahu said in a video message in Hebrew.
"But unfortunately, the situation is the opposite: I don't have that kind of trust. I feel a constant distrust toward the head of the Shin Bet. A distrust that has grown over time," he added, before asserting that this is a "necessary" decision to achieve "war objectives and prevent the next disaster."
For at least a month now, the newspaper Haaretz He warned that opposition lawmakers and the defense establishment – “particularly the Shin Bet itself” – were aware that Netanyahu wanted to get rid of Bar after the agency opened an investigation into alleged ties (including financial ones) between three of his advisors and spokesmen and Qatar.
Furthermore, on March 4, despite government opposition to the creation of a state commission of inquiry into the October 7 Hamas attack, the Shin Bet concluded that Qatar's funding of Hamas's military wing—without Israeli intervention—as well as the treatment of Palestinian prisoners and the internal division in the country over Netanyahu-sponsored judicial reform, laid the groundwork for the attack.
In recent months, the three most prominent figures in Israel's security establishment—former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, former Army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, and military spokesman Daniel Hagari—have also been removed from their posts or forced to resign due to apparent disagreements with the government.