Netanyahu approves firing of Israel's security chief amid protests

The Israeli cabinet voted early on Friday to dismiss the head of the Israeli 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 the nation's security office 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 Hamas on October 7, 2023.