Israeli PM Netanyahu's party steps up pressure for Shin Bet head to go

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party accused the head of the domestic intelligence organization on Tuesday of turning parts of the service into "a private militia of the Deep State" and called for him to go, amid a deepening political crisis around the agency.

The accusation against Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, who is resisting an order for his dismissal, followed the arrest of a Shin Bet official on suspicion of leaking confidential information to journalists and a government minister.

Shin Bet, which handles counter terrorism investigations, has been at the centre of a growing political battle pitting Netanyahu's right-wing government against an array of critics ranging from members of the security establishment to families of hostages in Gaza.

A government bid to sack Bar, during an investigation by the agency into aides close to Netanyahu, has been temporarily frozen by the Supreme Court, which held a hearing into petitions against the dismissal last week.

Likud said Bar had lost the trust of the government and "must stop entrenching himself in his position and vacate his position immediately".

The case, which has fuelled demonstrations by thousands of protesters who accuse Netanyahu of undermining Israeli democracy, has exposed deep rifts between the government and one of the country's key security organizations.

Part of the dispute centres around blame over the failures that allowed Hamas gunmen to rampage through communities in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage in Israel's worst-ever security disaster.

Netanyahu said last month he had lost confidence in Bar over Shin Bet's failure to forestall the October 7 attack. But critics have accused the prime minister of using the case as a pretext to stop a police and Shin Bet investigation into alleged financial ties between Qatar and a number of Netanyahu aides.

Bar has acknowledged his agency's failures ahead of October 7 and said he would resign before the end of his term. But he has accused Netanyahu, who has not acknowledged any responsibility and rejected calls for a national inquiry into October 7, of a major conflict of interest.

A Justice Ministry statement lifted a censorship order banning reporting on the case, but said the identity of the official who had been detained could not be revealed.

(Reporting by James Mackenzie; editing by Giles Elgood)