Netanyahu faces backlash over plan to fire internal security chief

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to dismiss Ronen Bar, the head of Shin Bet internal security service, has prompted calls for protest.

Several organizations called for protest rallies on Tuesday and Wednesday, while opposition Leader Yair Lapid announced that his centrist Yesh Atid party would file a lawsuit.

Netanyahu said on Sunday evening he planned to sack Bar, citing a "lack of trust."

He said that Israel is in a struggle for survival and that Bar's dismissal was "critical for the rehabilitation of the agency, for achieving all our war aims, and for preventing the next disaster."

Netanyahu said he would ask his Cabinet to fire Bar in the coming days.

Relations between the two have been strained. Netanyahu had removed Bar from the Israeli negotiating team conducting the indirect talks with the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas over the war in Gaza.

In an investigation by Shin Bet into the mistakes that had made the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023 possible, Netanyahu's policies had come in for criticism.

In addition, Shin Bet is investigating alleged illegal ties between Netanyahu's associates and Qatar. Qatar is one of the negotiators in the talks with Hamas, and is also a supporter of the group.

Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara said on Sunday evening that Netanyahu could not dismiss Bar until a thorough legal investigation into the circumstances had been conducted.

David Horovitz, founding editor of the Times of Israel, wrote that Netanyahu's move was aimed at tightening "his personal control of Israel."

He wrote in an opinion piece that in doing so, Netanyahu was plunging Israel back into the crisis that his right-wing government had triggered at the start of 2023 with the proposed overhaul of the judiciary.