The head of Singh Bett, Israel’s national intelligence agency, was rejected a week after Benjamin Netanyahu said he had lost confidence in him, and a week after he said he lost confidence in him despite three days of protests over the move.
“The government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end the term of Isa (Israel security agency) Director, Lonen Baa,” the statement said.
He will leave his post when his successor is appointed or by the latest April 10th, the statement said.
The bar, scheduled to end next year, was appointed by the previous Israeli government, which temporarily forced Netanyahu out of power between June 2021 and December 2022.
His relationship with Netanyahu was tense even before the unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
Relations have deteriorated after the release of the internal thimbet report on the Hamas attack on March 4th. It acknowledged the agency’s own failures in preventing attacks, but said “a quiet policy will allow Hamas to receive a massive military accumulation.”
With broad authority, Singh Bett is investigating Netanyahu’s close aides on alleged national security violations, including leaking documents classified as foreign media and receiving money from Qatar, known to have given Hamas important financial aid.
Netanyahu also faces a potential prison sentence at the end of an ongoing corruption trial. The 75-year-old politician, who first came to power in Israel in 1996 and served as prime minister for 17 years, gives evidence twice a week.
Barr was already responsible for his inability to prevent the attack, hinting at resigning before the end of his term.
He did not attend the Cabinet meeting, but in a letter sent to the Minister, he said that the decision to fire him was “completely… contaminated by conflicts of interest,” and was driven by “a completely different, offensive, fundamentally unacceptable motivation.”
Protesters who have protested their move to Sackbar for the past three days joined forces with protesters angry at the decision to resume the fight in Gaza to break a two-month ceasefire, with 59 Israeli hostages remaining on Palestinian territory.
At least 592 people have been killed in Israeli artillery fire over the past three days, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, mostly women and children.
Jerusalem protesters chanted “Israel is not Turkey, Israel is not Iran,” pointing to a series of recent moves they call the “red flag” for Israeli democracy. One is an unprecedented effort to dismiss the bar. The other is a bid by the Prime Minister and his allies to expel Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.
Dr Amir Fuchs, a legal expert at the Israeli Institute of Democracy, said Netanyahu “has a problem that we want to solve by focusing as much force as possible and removing all gatekeepers and experts, but this is not in line with the interests of the Israeli state and the interests of the Prime Minister and his government.”
