Internal Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) documents composed by Ronen Bar and leaked to the Israel Hayom daily suggest that the fired ISA director supported the controversial policy of “buying quiet” in the Gaza Strip in the years leading up to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.
The files from 2022 and 2023, which outline Bar’s recommendations to the Israeli government with regard to national security strategy, contradict claims made by the internal security chief after his firing, the report noted.
Bar’s directives reportedly urged Jerusalem to strengthen the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority—which governs the majority of Arabs in Judea and Samaria—in an attempt to isolate Hamas, in addition to “economic investment” to “stabilize” the situation in the Gaza Strip.
In his 2023 assessment, Bar argued that investing in the economy of Gaza could lead to long-term stability and weaken Hamas’s influence.
In addition, during a security briefing held only two days before the Oct. 7 massacre, Bar urged further humanitarian aid to Gaza as a “goodwill” gesture, including increasing the number of work permits issued to Gazans by an additional 1,500, as well as sending water and medicine, the report said.
According to Israel Hayom, Bar did not recommend the assassination of Hamas terrorists, rather only the neutralization of terrorist “incidents.”
The Cabinet on Thursday unanimously approved Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to fire Bar. The ISA director is set to conclude his position on April 10, “or when a permanent director is appointed—whichever comes first,” the Prime Minister’s Office said.
However, within hours of the Cabinet vote the High Court of Justice issued a temporary injunction preventing Bar’s removal. The order will remain in place up to April 8, by which time the highest court can hear the petitions that have been filed against the government’s move.
Thursday’s Cabinet resolution cited Netanyahu’s “persistent personal and professional distrust” of the Israel Security Agency head, deemed detrimental to both the government and the security service.
Ahead of Thursday night’s vote, the agency released a letter Bar had sent to the Cabinet ripping its “unfounded claims,” which he described as “nothing more than a cover for extraneous and fundamentally invalid motives designed to disrupt the ability of the Shin Bet to fulfill its role.”
In the missive, Bar claimed he issued “countless” warnings to Israel’s political echelon leading up to the Oct. 7 massacre, adding that his professional opinions were not always accepted by the Cabinet.
In a response to Israel Hayom on Tuesday, the Shin Bet blasted the report as “selective leaks from classified files, as part of an attempt to present the public with a partial picture that does not faithfully reflect the assessments and recommendations of the Shin Bet before Oct. 7.”
The organization said it would “continue to operate with mamlachtiut [statesmanship], not through leaks of classified materials to the media,” and called for “the circumstances related to the outbreak of the war to be investigated by a commission of inquiry in order to reach the truth.”
