Oct 7 attack: Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar to resign after war with Hamas over 'intelligence failure'

TEL AVIV: Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar will be resigning from his position at the end of the war in Gaza over the ‘intelligence failures’ ahead of the deadly Hamas onslaught on October 7, Times of Israel reported.

Shin Bet is Israel’s internal security service agency with headquarters located in northwest Tel Aviv.

“I spoke with him directly about what is expected and I have no doubt that he will be one of the first to hand over the keys,” former Shin Bet head Yaakov Perry told Army Radio. “His intention is to leave the position.”

On October 15, Bar acknowledged his personal responsibility for the lack of an early warning for the assault on southern Israel communities.

“Despite a series of actions we carried out, unfortunately, on [October 7] we were unable to generate a sufficient warning that would allow the attack to be thwarted,” he wrote at the time in a missive to members of the agency.

“As the one who heads the organization, the responsibility for this is mine,” Bar said. “There will be time for investigations. Now we are fighting.”

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu marked 100 days of Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip on Saturday night by reiterating his vow to continue fighting until the Palestinian terror group is defeated, TPS reported.

“Today, we mark 100 days of the war, 100 days since the terrible day on which our citizens were massacred and taken hostage. We are continuing the war until the end–until total victory, until we achieve all of our goals: eliminating Hamas, returning all of our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will never again constitute a threat to Israel,” said Netanyahu.

The premier then pivoted to the proceedings at The Hague, where South Africa has launched a case in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of genocide. Pretoria has also demanded an immediate end to the Israel Defense Forces’ operation against Hamas.

“The hypocritical onslaught at The Hague against the state of the Jews that arose from the ashes of the Holocaust, at the behest of those who came to perpetrate another Holocaust against the Jews–is a moral low point in the history of nations,” Netanyahu said.

At least 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7. The number of men, women, children, soldiers and foreigners held captive in Gaza by Hamas is now believed to be 136. Other people remain unaccounted for as Israeli authorities continue to identify bodies and search for human remains, according to TPS.