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Former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar sues Netanyahu for defamation over October 7 blame
Bar is seeking 3 million shekels and says the prime minister lied about his role on the morning of the Hamas attack. The case lands less than two weeks before Israel votes.
Key points
- Ronen Bar filed a 134-page defamation suit against Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday.
- He is seeking 3 million shekels (about $968,500) in damages.
- Israel goes to the polls on 27 October, with Netanyahu in a tight race.
Ronen Bar, who led Israel’s Shin Bet security agency on the day of the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023, sued Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for defamation on Wednesday, accusing him of blaming the agency to shield himself.
The 134-page filing seeks 3 million shekels, about $968,500. Bar says Netanyahu accused him of “criminal failures” over the attack, knowing the accusations to be false, and was “lying to cover himself” in order to draw attention away from his own responsibility. He also argues that the prime minister’s policies over several years increased the danger from armed groups in Gaza.
The phone call at the centre of it
Much of the dispute turns on the early hours of 7 October. Netanyahu has long said he was not alerted by Bar that morning and that he could have stopped the attack had the Shin Bet director or military chiefs called to wake him. Bar’s filing says he telephoned the prime minister’s military secretary as soon as there were signs of a possible attack, but that he did not have Netanyahu’s direct number.
Netanyahu answered in a statement issued by his Likud party. “Ronen, are you serious?” the statement said. “You had my number on the red line and could have called me immediately, as all security chiefs do.”
Bar resigned as Shin Bet chief in June 2025.
More voices from inside
The suit is the latest in a run of challenges from people who once worked close to the prime minister. Avi Gil, Netanyahu’s military secretary from July 2021 to May 2024, has said on Israeli television that the prime minister’s office “falsified records related to October 7, 2023”.
Gil said that in January 2024 Netanyahu’s chief of staff told a stenographer to change the logged time of a four-minute call from 6:40 am to 6:29 am. He quoted the stenographer as replying: “She told me, I’m not allowed to change it.”
Egypt’s intelligence chief at the time, Abbas Kamel, is also reported to have phoned Netanyahu days before the attack, and to have flown to Israel in September 2023 to warn officials in person that Hamas was planning something.
Why it matters now
Israel votes on 27 October. Netanyahu is in a close race to keep his job, and the question of who failed on 7 October has followed him through the campaign, raised by former staff, security officials and the opposition alike.
At least 1,221 Israelis were killed in the attack, according to Israeli official figures, and 251 were taken captive, among them the bodies of 44 people killed that day. Gaza’s Health Ministry says Israel’s war has since killed more than 74,300 people in the territory, including more than 1,400 since a US-backed ceasefire was agreed last year.
There is no word yet on when the court will first take up Bar’s suit.