Deputy Minister Almog Cohen reacted fiercely on Wednesday evening on social media platform X to an exclusive investigation aired by Channel 14 military correspondent Hallel Bitton Rosen, which revealed that a veteran Shin Bet operative had transmitted an extraordinary operational warning two days before the October 7 massacre. Cohen directed blistering personal criticism toward former Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar, holding him directly responsible for the catastrophe.
1+“The publication on Channel 14 by Hallel Bitton Rosen is jarring—but not surprising,” Cohen wrote in his initial response to the report. Targeting the conduct of the former security chief, Cohen added: “Ronen Bar, the then-head of the Shin Bet—the one who feared a ‘miscalculation’ despite being aware of all five indicative signs—is directly responsible for the Simchat Torah massacre and should sit in a dungeon for the rest of his life.”
Addressing the breakdown between intelligence leadership and elected officials, the Deputy Minister continued: “Whoever chose to violate the democratic order and turned overnight into the decision-maker will feel its full force.”
1+Cohen’s public denunciation follows the Channel 14 broadcast in which “A.,” a veteran operative who served in the Israel Security Agency for 37 years across sensitive counter-terrorism and intelligence posts, revealed that on October 5, 2023, he reported abnormal operational patterns among Gaza terror handlers who had abruptly vanished from communications networks. According to the operative’s testimony, the information was passed up the chain of command directly to Bar. Still, it was never briefed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or translated into preventive defensive deployments.
The operative also claimed that when he demanded accountability and pointed out his pre-massacre alert following the outbreak of the war, he was subjected to veiled threats from within the agency and ultimately pushed out of service. The Shin Bet and representatives for Ronen Bar have rejected the claims in their entirety, describing the account as false and asserting that internal reviews and captured enemy files confirm Hamas leadership strictly compartmentalized the timing of the assault until the final hours.