Former Shin Bet Chief Sues Netanyahu for Defamation Amid Sensitive Election Timing

Ronen Bar, the former director of Israel's internal security agency the Shin Bet, filed a defamation lawsuit against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of "lying to cover for himself" regarding the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.

The lawsuit, documented in 164 pages, came just ahead of Israeli elections scheduled for October 27, in which Netanyahu is fighting a tight battle for his political survival, and is expected to add further tension to the country's political landscape.

Bar described in the lawsuit document Netanyahu's accusation against him of "criminal failures" as explicit defamation. He asserted that he contacted the prime minister's military secretary as soon as indications of an imminent attack emerged, but that he did not possess Netanyahu's direct number.

In response, Netanyahu insists that Bar did not alert him on the morning of the attack, claiming that he would have been able to stop it had the former director or military officials awakened him in the early hours of that morning.

Bar believed that Netanyahu leveled accusations against him "that he knows are false, with the aim of diverting the discussion away from his own responsibility for the events."