Israel’s government said Tuesday it had cancelled a decision to fire domestic security chief Ronen Bar, a day after he announced he would stand down following weeks of tension with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The government has decided to revoke its decision of March 20, 2025” to sack Bar, it said in a document submitted to the Supreme Court, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.
The government’s move to fire Bar, head of the Shin Bet security agency, had been frozen by the top court and triggered mass protests.
Bar has contested his sacking in a legal case that has divided the nation and brought out conflicting testimonies of events leading up to Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.
Israeli left-leaning newspaper Haaretz said the government’s decision to revoke the dismissal appears “aimed at preempting a potentially precedent-setting high court ruling on petitions challenging Bar’s ouster”.
Bar announced on Monday that he would stand down on June 15.
In a recent sworn statement to the Supreme Court, he accused Netanyahu of demanding personal loyalty and ordering him to spy on anti-government protesters.
On Sunday, Netanyahu filed an affidavit of his own to the court calling Bar a “liar”.
In his comments to agency staff on Monday, Bar said the “court proceedings are not about my personal situation, but about the independence of future Shin Bet heads”.
“There is a need for clarification regarding the institutional protections that will enable every future head of the Shin Bet to perform his or her duties, subject to government policy, for the public good, independently and without pressure,” he said.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara had cautioned that the effort to oust Bar was “tainted by a personal conflict of interest on the part of the prime minister”, as the Shin Bet was investigating Netanyahu’s close advisers for allegedly receiving money from Qatar.
Bar on Monday also addressed the agency’s failure to prevent Hamas’s unprecedented attack.
“After years of many fronts, in one night, on the southern front, the sky fell. All systems collapsed. The Shin Bet failed to provide an early warning,” he said.
“As the head of the organisation, I have taken responsibility for this.”
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