Netanyahu government approves firing of Shin Bet head amid protests

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -The Israeli cabinet voted early on Friday to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence service effective April 10, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said, after three days of protests against the move.

Netanyahu said this week he had lost confidence in Ronen Bar, who has led Shin Bet since 2021, and intended to dismiss him.

Bar did not attend the cabinet meeting but in a letter sent to ministers said the process around his firing did not comply with rules and his dismissal was predicated on baseless claims.

Late on Thursday, police fired water cannon and made numerous arrests as scuffles broke out during the protests in Tel Aviv and close to the prime minister's residence in Jerusalem, where police said dozens of protesters tried to break through security cordons.

Over the past three days, demonstrators protesting the move to sack Bar have joined forces with protesters angry at the decision to resume fighting in Gaza, breaking a two-month-old ceasefire, while 59 Israeli hostages remain in the Palestinian enclave.

"We're very, very worried that our country is becoming a dictatorship," Rinat Hadashi, 59, said in Jerusalem. "They're abandoning our hostages, they're neglecting all the important things for this country."

The decision followed months of tension between Bar and Netanyahu over a corruption investigation into allegations that a number of aides in Netanyahu's office were offered bribes by figures connected with Qatar.

Netanyahu has dismissed the accusation as a politically motivated attempt to unseat him, but his critics have accused him of undermining the institutions underpinning Israel's democracy by seeking Bar's removal.

In his letter to the government, Bar said the decision to fire him was "entirely tainted by ... conflicts of interest" and driven by "completely different, extraneous and fundamentally unacceptable motives".

He had already announced that he intended to step down early to take responsibility for the intelligence lapses that failed to prevent the attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7, 2023.

DEEP DIVISIONS

The angry scenes on Thursday highlighted divisions that have deepened since Netanyahu returned to power as head of a right-wing coalition at the end of 2022.

Even before the war in Gaza, tens of thousands of Israelis were joining regular demonstrations protesting a government drive to curb the power of the judiciary that critics saw as an assault on Israeli democracy but which the government said was needed to limit judicial overreach.

On Thursday Yair Golan, a former deputy chief of staff in the military who now leads the opposition Democrats party, was pushed to the ground during a scuffle, drawing condemnation and calls for an investigation by other opposition politicians.

Former Defence Minister Benny Gantz said the clashes were a direct result of divisions caused by "an extremist government that has lost its grip".

In Tel Aviv, demonstrators rallied outside the Kirya military headquarters complex as ministers met to formally approve the dismissal of Bar.

Since the start of the war, there have also been regular protests by families and supporters of hostages seized by Hamas during the October 7 attack that have sometimes echoed the criticisms of the government.

With the resumption of Israel's campaign in Gaza, the fate of 59 hostages, as many as 24 of whom are still believed to be alive, remains unclear and protesters said a return to war could see them either killed by their captors or accidentally by Israeli bombardments.

"This is not an outcome the Israeli people can accept," The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group representing hostage families, said in a statement.

(Reporting by Emily Rose; writing by Cynthia Osterman; editing by Mark Heinrich, Deepa Babington and Stephen Coates)