Ronen Bar Sues Netanyahu for NIS 3 Million Over October 7

Ronen Bar, who formerly headed the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), took Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to court on Wednesday morning. He is seeking NIS 3 million in damages. The defamation claim, lodged with the Central District Court, turns on who bears the blame for the October 7 massacre. It charges that Netanyahu "fabricated a blood libel to pin the blame for October 7 on me."

According to the filing, as reported by The Jerusalem Post, Bar alerted the prime minister nearly every week in the months before the attack. He warned that escalation was coming on several fronts and pointed specifically to Gaza and to the period of the Jewish High Holidays. He also put forward plans to strike senior Hamas officials. The suit says Netanyahu brushed aside or disregarded both the warnings and the proposals.

Bar plans to press for full disclosure of documents through the case. "In the absence of a state commission of inquiry, the truth will be established in court," he said. He also urged the prime minister "not to hide behind claims of immunity." He closed with the line: "A little light will dispel much darkness."

The suit further accuses Netanyahu of running a years-long policy of "quiet at any cost" in Gaza. Under that approach, it says, he issued explicit orders to keep the Strip calm, delay confrontations, treat Gaza as a secondary arena and leave Hamas in power. "This policy included funding Hamas's military wing and its buildup through money from Qatar, contrary to the Shin Bet's position over the years, and was based on assessments that Hamas was deterred," the filing states.

The suit also addresses the night of October 7 itself. It sets out evidence intended to refute the claim that the Shin Bet withheld information. By 3:03 a.m., it says, the service was already sending warnings to every security agency. The Military Secretariat in the Prime Minister's Office was kept informed of the intelligence picture. Bar also ordered that Netanyahu's military secretary be briefed before the assault began. "It is worth noting that the prime minister did not get back to the head of the Shin Bet and did not intervene even after the massacre began," the lawsuit states.

The filing notes that Netanyahu has spent nearly two decades in total as prime minister overseeing all of Israel's security agencies. It argues he therefore knows the Shin Bet does not command troops on the ground, approve civilian gatherings or dispatch civilian emergency teams. It calls his accusations "malicious and entirely false defamation intended to conceal the truth from the public."

The suit dates the campaign against Bar to a specific point. It says the campaign began after Netanyahu failed to stop Bar from submitting an affidavit to the High Court of Justice. That affidavit dealt with advisers in the Prime Minister's Office employed by Qatar. It also covered alleged attempts to turn the Shin Bet into a "secret police" against political protests.

Bar did not deny his own share of the failure. "As the head of the service, I bear responsibility for the Shin Bet's failure to provide the intelligence required regarding the October 7 attack and its timing," he said in a statement. "Accordingly, I resigned from my position, bowing my head before the bereaved families."

Bar said he had waited three years for a commission of inquiry that would examine the Shin Bet's actions as well as its failures, "in the face of an ongoing blood libel." He said the prime minister's recent outburst was what led him to break his silence.

Last week, a Channel 12 investigation presented letters and warnings sent to Netanyahu in the months before October 7. According to that report, Netanyahu declined an urgent meeting that Bar and then-IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi requested in March 2023.