Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acted like a "crime lord" while dismissing Shin Bet Chief Ronen Bar, opposition leader Yair Lapid said on Monday.
Former Shin Bet chief, Yoram Cohen, told Army Radio that Netanyahu had asked to disqualify former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett from Israel's Security Cabinet.
"Netanyahu tried to use the Shin Bet to plot and eliminate a political opponent," Lapid said on X, calling Cohen's interview with Army Radio an "earthquake."
"This is not the behavior of a prime minister, this is the behavior of a crime lord."
Cohen, who was the head of the Shin Bet from 2011 to 2016, did not specify when Netanyahu asked to disqualify Bennett.
During Cohen's time as Shin Bet chief, Bennett served in several government positions, including as education minister, economy minister, and religious services minister, and participated in the political-security cabinet.
"The prime minister called me privately and told me, 'I have recently received information about Bennett. He was removed as an officer of the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit due to a loyalty problem, so he can't sit in the Cabinet'," Cohen said.
He said that he refused to enforce Netanyahu's request, saying that the prime minister asked him in the past "to surveil the heads of the security institutions."
"After a sensitive operation in the past, Netanyahu asked me to activate Shin Bet's information-gathering tools against all secret partners of the operation from the intelligence services, including the chief of army staff and Mossad chief," Cohen said.
Bennett, for his part, denied allegations of his removal from the unit on his official X account on Monday.
"I wanted to eliminate Hamas, Netanyahu wanted to eliminate me," Bennett said.
Last month, the Israeli government unanimously agreed to Netanyahu's proposal to dismiss the Shin Bet chief, making it the first such decision in Israel's history, despite protests from thousands of Israeli citizens.
The Supreme Court temporarily froze the dismissal, pending a review of petitions filed by opposition parties. The court set April 8 as the date to review the petitions against Bar's dismissal.
Last week, Netanyahu announced the appointment of former Navy Commander Eli Sharvit as the new Shin Bet chief but later retracted the decision amid criticism within his government following revelations that Sharvit had participated in protests against the government in early 2023.
Bar's dismissal came as Israel continued its deadly onslaught on the Gaza Strip, where more than 50,700 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023, most of them women and children.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
