Former Shin Bet Chief Suing Netanyahu: 'Fabricated Blood Libel in Attempt to Shift Blame for October 7'
Ronen Bar, in a legal response to accusations made by Netanyahu against him, details at least 20 warnings on Gaza's security situation and provides evidence the service did share intel with Netanyahu's office hours before Hamas' attack
Israel's former Shin Bet director Ronen Bar filed a libel suit on Wednesday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The suit was filed over an X post published on September 28 accusing Bar of concealing intelligence information received before Hamas' attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023 – and attributing "failures and criminal offenses" to the resigned head of service.
In the lawsuit for three million shekels (over $975,000) filed with the Tel Aviv District Court against the prime minister, Bar claims that Netanyahu spread a blood libel against him in an attempt to shift responsibility for the security failures that enabled Hamas' attack onto him.
Many of the claims Netanyahu directed at Bar are baseless. The suit's statement of claim details, at length, the warnings that Bar as Shin Bet chief presented to Netanyahu in the months leading up to the outbreak of the war on October 7, 2023.
בחודשים שקדמו ל-7 באוקטובר, ראש הממשלה נתניהו לא נפגש ולא שוחח עם עבאס כאמל, שעמד אז בראש שירות המודיעין הכללי של מצרים, ואף גורם מודיעיני ישראלי לא העביר לראש הממשלה אזהרה מצרית. ראש הממשלה הנחה להגיש תביעת דיבה גם בנושא זה. מעבר לכך, חשוב להבהיר: ראש הממשלה נתניהו מעולם אינו
The statement of claim presents demands Bar and his predecessor Nadav Argaman gave Netanyahu regarding recommendations to assassinate senior Hamas officials.
The statement of claim also details the Shin Bet chiefs' opposition to the continued flow of Qatari money into the Gaza Strip, after the Shin Bet, and subsequently Military Intelligence, revealed that a significant portion of the funds were actually used to strengthen Hamas' military wing.
March-July 2023: IDF sends Netanyahu four documents containing general warnings.
May 2023: Ex-Shin Bet chief tells Netanyahu a war with Hamas is inevitable.
July 2023: According to Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, then-Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar sends Netanyahu a "general" warning ahead of a possible war.
Emirati warning: First reported by Haaretz and later confirmed by The New York Times, UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed warned Netanyahu about 10 days before October 7 that Hamas was planning a major attack and urged him to take it seriously.
First Egyptian warning: First reported by The Atlantic, Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel secretly visited Israel on September 26, 2023, and warned that Hamas appeared to be preparing a major assault.
Additional Egyptian warnings: Reported by Yedioth Ahronoth and The Wall Street Journal, Kamel called Netanyahu days before October 7 to warn of signs of an imminent attack from Gaza.
Bar claims that Netanyahu is responsible for the "containment and quiet" policy that allowed the Palestinian terror organization Hamas to continue building its military strength.
In the documents submitted with the suit, Bar details more than 20 instances in which he warned Netanyahu about developments in the Gaza Strip and recommended taking proactive steps to harm Hamas.
The first of these warnings occurred on November 7, 2022, during a meeting between the two about a week after Likud won Israel's general election, and almost two months before Netanyahu returned to the Prime Minister's Office.
According to the data Bar presents in his claim, the frequency and severity of the warnings significantly increased during August and September 2023.
On July 6, 2023, Bar handed Netanyahu an annual strategic planning document for the Shin Bet service, which included a detailed threat assessment of Hamas' growing strength and an operational recommendation for proactive strike rounds and renewed assassinations in Gaza.
After reviewing it, Netanyahu returned the document and wrote to Bar, in the chapter titled "Focusing National Security Strategy": "This is not a directive of a service chief. In a democracy, the Shin Bet is not responsible for shaping Israel's national strategy."
According to Bar, the "incitement campaign" waged against him by the prime minister "is intended not only to absolve him of responsibility, but also to harm those who worked to cleanse Netanyahu's office of elements acting on behalf of the Hamas-supporting Qatari government, and those who worked to prevent the Shin Bet from becoming a secret police force in the hands of the government."
In his statement, Bar calls on the prime minister to revoke any claims of immunity, and to immediately make all documents related to the affair publicly available. In Bar's view, releasing most of the available documents won't cause damage to Israel's security.
Bar claims Netanyahu is trying to divert public discussion from his own responsibility for the massacre's failures and exclusively shift it onto Bar.
Bar also writes in his statement of claim: "As the former head of the Shin Bet service, I bear responsibility that the Shin Bet, for its part, failed in providing the necessary intelligence regarding the October 7 attack and its timing."
"Accordingly, bowing my head before the bereaved families, I resigned from my position. We fought, we thwarted senior Hamas officials in Gaza and Lebanon, and we brought back hostages in daring Shin Bet operations and through determined negotiation."
Bar further writes: "I waited quietly for three years for the establishment of a state commission of inquiry that would finally expose the Shin Bet's actions, alongside its failures, and all in the face of an ongoing blood libel. Given the prime minister's unrestrained outburst, I decided not to remain silent and to show the public the motives behind such improper conduct."
Bar says he is not trying to shirk his responsibility, which he has already fulfilled, but rather to repel the libel against him by the prime minister.
The statement of claim, filed through attorneys Reuven Behar, Yoram Bonen and Doron Kol of Fischer (FBC & Co.), details how in the months leading up to the disaster, Bar warned Netanyahu, on an almost weekly basis, about an impending multi-front escalation, with explicit emphasis on the Gaza Strip and the High Holidays – around the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Simhat Torah.
Bar says he presented proactive plans to assassinate senior Hamas officials, but that the warnings and plans he presented were either canceled or ignored by Netanyahu.
According to Bar, Netanyahu led a policy of "quiet at all costs" in the Gaza Strip for several years, a policy which included explicit directives to maintain quiet in the Strip, defer confrontations, keep Gaza as a secondary arena in Israel's military focus, and preserve Hamas as a governing entity.
Bar also says he himself completely rejected the assessment long held by Netanyahu and many senior officials – that Hamas in the Gaza Strip was weakened and deterred. "Every attempt by Bar to influence policy-making was bluntly blocked by the prime minister," the statement of claim alleges.
"The truth will be revealed in court"
In his statement of claim, the Shin Bet's former director presents evidence from the eve of October 7, which he claims completely discredits the claim that the service concealed information from the prime minister.
According to Bar, contrary to Netanyahu's claims, the Shin Bet issued an ongoing warning to all of Israel's security bodies on the night before the attack, starting at 3:03 A.M. Like all other security agencies, the military secretary's office at the Prime Minister's Office was also updated on the intelligence situation.
Bar also says he instructed the service to directly update Netanyahu's military secretary, Maj. Gen. Avi Gil – following instructions on communication channels established by the prime minister himself – even before the attack began. The order to issue a direct update to the Prime Minister's military secretary is documented in Shin Bet situation room log computers.
Bar writes in his statement of claim that Netanyahu did not call him back, nor did he intervene in the decision-making process, even in the first hours after the Hamas attack began.
In Netanyahu's X post, he claimed Bar abandoned the partygoers at the site of the Nova Music Festival, as he failed to issue an order to activate the security squads in the area.
Bar writes in his statement of claim that Netanyahu, who served cumulatively as prime minister for almost two decades and was responsible for all of Israel's security agencies – the Shin Bet, the IDF and police – knows very well that the Shin Bet is not responsible for managing military forces on the ground, nor for supervising or approving civilian parties or activating security squads.
Therefore, Bar adds, the prime minister's repeated accusations constitute "malicious and utterly false libel," intended to conceal the truth from the public.
"This blood libel began immediately after Netanyahu failed in his attempt to prevent Ronen Bar from submitting an affidavit to the High Court of Justice in which he detailed the significant security risk that, in his estimation, arose from the employment of advisers in the Prime Minister's Office by Qatar, a country that supports Hamas, and from the prime minister's attempts to use the Shin Bet as a secret police force against political protests."
Full statement of claim issued on behalf of Ronen Bar, in Hebrew.Bar also writes that he had believed, until now, that it was best to await the establishment of a state commission of inquiry to reveal the facts – but given the personal smear campaign against him, which he says harms the Shin Bet, its fighters and the memory of its fallen; the absence of any action to advance a state commission of inquiry; reports of alleged attempts to falsify official minutes; alongside attempts to establish false narratives and incite against heads of Israel's security establishments – it is no longer possible "to allow the prime minister's stream of lies to continue to permeate the public."
According to Bar's attorneys, "The suit is filed with the aim of revealing the entire truth, protecting the memory of the fallen and the honor of Shin Bet employees, preventing ongoing harm to the state's values and security, and drawing lessons to prevent the next disaster."
The former head of the service writes that he believes that a due legal process in court, prompted by his suit, is a "moral and security obligation, and part of fulfilling my responsibility and duty to the state. I call on the prime minister not to hide behind a claim of immunity. In the absence of a state commission of inquiry – the truth will be revealed in court. A little bit of light will dispel much of the darkness."
The Prime Minister's Office has not yet responded.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded a few hours later to Bar's suit.
"Ronen Bar, who saw the warning signs on the night of October 7th and didn't call me, is saying today that he didn't have my phone number," Netanyahu wrote in a post to X. The post attached a screenshot of a Ynet report according to which Bar said Netanyahu did not provide him with his mobile phone number, and that communication with the prime minister was conducted through his military secretary and chief of staff.
"Ronen, are you serious? After all, you had my red phone number, and you could have called me immediately, just as all heads of the security establishment do," Netanyahu's response said, referring to a classified secure line.
"The Shin Bet security guards, your subordinates, who are with me 24/7, could have reached me within minutes. How many lives could we have saved if you had only called in time."