Ronen Bar Files Defamation Suit Against Netanyahu Over October 7 Allegations as Israeli Election Nears

Israel's political landscape has been thrown into further turmoil after Ronen Bar, the former director of the Shin Bet domestic security agency, filed a defamation lawsuit against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over accusations related to the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack. The 134-page court document, submitted on Wednesday, accuses the prime minister of spreading false claims about Bar's role in failing to prevent the deadliest assault in Israel's history. The timing of the lawsuit, arriving less than two weeks before Israel's closely contested October 27 election, adds a new layer of drama to an already charged campaign season in which Netanyahu is fighting to retain power.

At the heart of the dispute is a fundamental disagreement over who bears responsibility for the intelligence and operational failures that allowed Hamas fighters to breach Israel's border fence and carry out a devastating attack that killed at least 1,221 Israelis and saw 251 people taken captive, including the bodies of 44 individuals killed that day. Bar maintains that he acted appropriately in the lead-up to the assault, while Netanyahu has publicly suggested that the former Shin Bet chief failed to alert him in time to prevent the bloodshed.

According to the lawsuit, Bar attempted to reach the prime minister as soon as signs of a possible attack emerged, but was unable to contact Netanyahu directly because he did not possess the prime minister's personal phone number. Instead, Bar says he telephoned the prime minister's military secretary to convey the urgent information. This detail forms a central pillar of Bar's legal argument that he fulfilled his professional obligations given the circumstances and communications channels available to him.

Netanyahu has consistently maintained a different version of events, insisting that neither Bar nor military leaders called to wake him on the morning of the attack. The prime minister has argued that had he been alerted in time, he could have taken action to stop the assault before it unfolded. This narrative has been a recurring theme in Netanyahu's public statements as he seeks to deflect criticism away from his own office and toward the security establishment that he claims failed to provide adequate warning.

The lawsuit specifically accuses Netanyahu of making statements "that he knew to be false, with the aim of diverting the debate from his own responsibility for the events of October 7." Bar's legal team further contends that it was Netanyahu's own policies over a period of several years that "increased the dangers posed by terrorist organisations in Gaza," suggesting that the prime minister's approach to managing the threat from Hamas ultimately contributed to the conditions that made the attack possible.

In a statement issued through his Likud party on Wednesday, Netanyahu responded with characteristic combativeness. "Ronen, are you serious?" the statement read, before challenging Bar's account directly. "You had my number on the red line and could have called me immediately, as all security chiefs do." The prime minister then posed a rhetorical question designed to shift blame back onto Bar: "How many lives could we have saved if only you had called in time?" This exchange highlights the deeply personal nature of the dispute between two men who were once key figures in Israel's security establishment.

Bar stepped down from his position as head of Shin Bet in June 2025, resigning amid intense recriminations over the October 7 attack. Throughout his tenure and following his departure, Bar has consistently maintained that he did inform Netanyahu of the threat in advance. His lawsuit seeks three million shekels, approximately $968,500, in damages from the prime minister, a figure that while significant is likely less important to Bar than the opportunity to clear his name through legal proceedings.

The defamation suit arrives at a particularly sensitive moment in Israeli politics. Recent polling suggests that Netanyahu's Likud party and the ruling coalition face a tight race against opposition blocs, with no clear frontrunner emerging in an increasingly fragmented political landscape. The election is the first to be held since Israel engaged in military conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks. Netanyahu has been heavily criticized by former staff members, government officials, and opposition figures for failing to prevent the attack, and the lawsuit threatens to keep that criticism in the public eye during the final stretch of the campaign.

Bar's legal filing comes just days after another damaging revelation emerged from Netanyahu's former military secretary, Avi Gil. In an interview with Israel's Channel 12, Gil alleged that the prime minister's office had "falsified records related to October 7, 2023," including altering the recorded time of a key phone call. Gil, who served as Netanyahu's military secretary from July 2021 to May 2024, described how a stenographer in the prime minister's office approached him in January 2024 with instructions from Netanyahu's chief of staff to change the time of a four-minute call from 6:40am local time to 6:29am. According to Gil, the stenographer told him she was not permitted to make the change, and he accused the head of Netanyahu's office of manipulating telephone records. "Those are facts, and there is no dispute about them," Gil stated.

Additional reporting has further complicated Netanyahu's position. Last month, the Wall Street Journal revealed that Netanyahu had been warned of the impending attack by Egypt's intelligence chief, Abbas Kamel. In what was described as a rare move, Kamel reportedly phoned the prime minister just days before the October 7 assault, adding to previous warnings in September 2023 when he is said to have flown to Israel to personally warn security officials that Hamas was planning an attack. These revelations suggest that multiple channels of warning were directed toward Netanyahu's office in the period leading up to the attack, undermining the prime minister's claims that he was kept in the dark.

The human cost of the October 7 attack and the subsequent conflict continues to mount. In the three years since the assault, Israel's military operations in Gaza have killed more than 74,300 people, according to the Health Ministry in the enclave. More than 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in Israeli attacks since a tentative ceasefire backed by the United States was reached last year, indicating that violence has persisted despite diplomatic efforts to halt the fighting.

As the election approaches, the defamation lawsuit and the competing narratives surrounding October 7 are likely to remain central issues for Israeli voters. Bar's decision to pursue legal action represents an unusual step for a former security chief, reflecting the depth of the dispute between himself and the prime minister. The outcome of both the lawsuit and the election will have significant implications for how Israel reckons with the failures of October 7 and assigns responsibility for the worst security breach in the country's history. For now, the legal and political battles are set to continue in parallel, each feeding into the other as the nation prepares to cast its ballots.