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<\/a><\/p>\nRonen Bar attends a ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum on Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, April 23, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg\/Flash90)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
This week, former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar upped the stakes by filing a defamation lawsuit against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The premier has blamed the intelligence head for the failures leading up to the attack even as many in the security establishment have pointed the finger at Netanyahu. Bar in his lawsuit lists a litany of occasions Netanyahu allegedly ignored or rejected advice that might have prevented the attacks. <\/p>\n
In the run-up to the national vote on Oct. 27, Israeli media have been preoccupied with reports of intelligence that was purportedly shared with top government officials ahead of the attacks. What Netanyahu knew about the Hamas threat before the invasion \u2014 and when he knew it \u2014 has become a central issue in the campaign and a line of attack for his political rivals. <\/p>\n
Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party and Netanyahu\u2019s leading challenger, said in response to the lawsuit that \u201cNetanyahu was warned and did not act,\u201d and that he would not allow Netanyahu to \u201cevade the truth.\u201d Opposition leader Yair Lapid said that \u201cNetanyahu can no longer claim that he didn\u2019t know,\u201d while Yair Golan, leader of the left-wing \u201cThe Democrats\u201d party, said Netanyahu\u2019s responsibility for \u201cthe worst massacre in Israel\u2019s history is direct and clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
A range of political and security leaders who were in charge at the time have assumed responsibility and left their posts: Among them are Bar, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and military intelligence chief Aharon Haliva. <\/p>\n
Not Netanyahu. He has rejected accusations that he is responsible for the failures even as he has prevented the establishment of a state commission of inquiry to investigate those responsible. He has argued that such a commission, whose members would be appointed by the president of the Supreme Court, as is traditionally the case in Israel, would be biased and would not enjoy public trust.<\/p>\n
Beyond blaming the security establishment, Netanyahu has also sought to shift responsibility onto political rivals and previous governments. He has pointed to the actions, or failure to act, of political opponents, including Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett and Benny Gantz, when they held senior positions, as well as Israel\u2019s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, as factors that contributed to the Oct. 7 massacre.<\/p>\n
In the lawsuit itself, Bar accuses Netanyahu of \u201ctrying to rewrite history and completely evade his responsibility for the events of Oct. 7.\u201d The filing sets out a series of alleged warnings Bar gave Netanyahu before the attack, as well as Netanyahu\u2019s alleged refusal to adopt Bar\u2019s recommendations for offensive action in the months leading up to the massacre.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit details more than a dozen instances in which Bar allegedly warned of Hamas\u2019 growing strength and its intentions to attack Israel, alongside repeated recommendations that Netanyahu take more aggressive action against the group.<\/p>\n
Among the warnings cited in the lawsuit, Bar said he presented Netanyahu in January of 2023 with his assessment that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar wanted a multifront campaign against Israel. <\/p>\n
In February, Bar allegedly sent Netanyahu a personal letter warning that terrorist organizations saw an opportunity to act and that the combination of Israel\u2019s internal divisions and instability in the Palestinian arena could bring the country closer to a \u201cperfect storm.\u201d <\/p>\n
In July, Bar said he told Netanyahu directly that he was conveying a strategic warning of war. <\/p>\n
In September, he allegedly warned that Hamas wanted to escalate the conflict during October.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu responded to the lawsuit in a post on X, addressing one specific claim in the filing: that he had never given Bar his personal phone number.<\/p>\n
\u201cRonen, are you serious? You had my red phone number and could have called me immediately, as all heads of the security establishment do,\u201d Netanyahu wrote. \u201cHow many lives could we have saved if only you had called in time.\u201d Netanyahu has claimed recently that had security officials awoken him earlier on Oct. 7, he would have somehow stemmed the attack. <\/p>\n
Bar\u2019s suit also alleges that he consistently recommended initiating offensive operations against Hamas, including a \u201cpreemptive strike\u201d and targeted killings. According to the lawsuit, Netanyahu strongly opposed those recommendations because he wanted to keep Hamas as a secondary concern. Bar also said Netanyahu reprimanded him for dealing with \u201cstrategy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defendant had been in a state of slumber for many long months beforehand and refused to wake up despite the alarm bells the plaintiff sounded in his ears incessantly,\u201d the lawsuit alleges, alluding to Netanyahu\u2019s plaints that he was not awoken early on Oct. 7. \u201cThe gap between the professional warnings and recommendations the plaintiff presented to the defendant and the response the defendant gave them is beyond comprehension.\u201d<\/p>\n
The defamation claim focuses in particular on a post Netanyahu published on X late last month, in which he claimed that Bar \u201cknew about the real danger\u201d in the early hours of Oct. 7 but chose not to wake him or take other preventive measures. Netanyahu accused Bar of trying to shift responsibility for \u201call of Ronen Bar\u2019s failures and crimes\u201d onto him.<\/p>\n
In a press statement after filing the suit Wednesday, Bar called Netanyahu\u2019s post a \u201cblood libel\u201d and announced that he was suing for 3 million shekels ($968,500) in damages and seeking a correction of Netanyahu\u2019s statements.<\/p>\n
Bar repeatedly emphasized in the lawsuit that he was not seeking to absolve himself or the Shin Bet of responsibility for the failures that led to the Oct. 7 massacre. Rather, he said, the suit was a response to Netanyahu\u2019s attempt to \u201cshift the responsibility exclusively onto Bar.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI waited quietly for three years for the establishment of a commission of inquiry that would finally expose the Shin Bet\u2019s work, alongside its failures, in the face of an ongoing blood libel,\u201d Bar said.<\/p>\n