Shea Levin — text status

Former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar maintained direct contacts with senior Hamas officials abroad during the war and hostage negotiations, telling the cabinet in 2025 that PM Netanyahu had approved the channel. The contacts had previously been barred from publication and were cleared today N 12 reports. Senior defense officials reportedly confronted Netanyahu over the contacts; he denied knowing about them and ordered businessman Shlomi Fogel to stop, but the channel continued. The disclosure follows earlier reporting that Netanyahu had also used Fogel as a backchannel to senior Hamas figure Ghazi Hamed during the 2014 Gaza war.