October 17, 2026
The former head of the Israeli General Security Service (Shin Bet), Ronen Bar, opened a new chapter in the political and security debate surrounding the Israeli government’s policy prior to the October 7 attack, in a defamation lawsuit he filed today, Wednesday, against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to a report by journalist Amir Boukhbout on the Walla website, the lawsuit revealed that parties within the government, about three months before the attack, proposed the idea of allowing Hamas to control the West Bank.
The lawsuit documents indicated that the proposal was presented behind the scenes of a session of the mini-ministerial council for security and political affairs (cabinet) held on July 9, 2023, without specifying the identity of the party that proposed it or the mechanism for its implementation, and without monitoring any official decision to adopt it. Barr pointed out that he had to stress during the session that “Hamas is a fundamentalist religious movement that has set on its banner the elimination of Israel and the killing of Israelis,” noting that Operation “Guardian of the Walls” represented a turning point in the movement’s level of confidence and its ambitions to work across multiple fronts.
The lawsuit included details about a series of warnings and recommendations made by Barr at the time, indicating that he recommended to Netanyahu, on July 10, 2023, a military response in the Gaza Strip to attempts to carry out operations in the West Bank, by targeting the parties directed to it from within the Strip, while proposing an alternative that required reducing the number of Palestinian workers coming to Israel if it was not possible to carry out offensive operations. Barr confirmed that these recommendations were repeated in several meetings, but they were ignored, noting that an assessment of the situation held on the twelfth of the same month concluded that the decline of Israeli deterrence requires a radical change in the policies followed.
In the context of his criticism of the policy of separation between Gaza and the West Bank, Barr considered that the approach led by Netanyahu kept the division in place between the Hamas authority in the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, while containing the movement’s growing capabilities. The text of the lawsuit stated that “preserving Hamas’s rule was not a side result, but rather a calculated step that stood at the heart of the defendant’s policy,” pointing out that the Shin Bet constantly opposed this policy, and that Bar presented a strategic document to Netanyahu at the beginning of his term confirming his refusal to accept the presence of a fundamentalist enemy possessing military capabilities near the border.
The defamation lawsuit targets a publication by Netanyahu dating back to September 28, 2026, that addressed the actions of the former Shin Bet chief on the night of the attack, with Barr demanding financial compensation of 3 million shekels in addition to publishing a denial or correction. While directing these accusations against Netanyahu, Bar acknowledged his agency’s responsibility for failing to provide early warning about the size and timing of the October 7 attack, stressing that he personally bore that responsibility as head of the Shin Bet at the time.
