Report: Former Shin Bet officials accuse Zini of crossing ‘red line’ over removal of Oct. 7 memorial

A recent decision by Shin Bet chief David Zini to dismantle a memorial at the entrance to the agency’s Tel Aviv headquarters commemorating employees killed in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led terror onslaught has sparked fierce backlash among current and former officials in the security agency, Channel 12 reports.

The decision – in addition to other reported decisions by Zini, including the cancellation of a planned Pride Month event within the agency and the removal of the budget of the organization’s LGBTQ employee group – prompted three former senior Shin Bet officials who returned to assist the organization after October 7 to decide to tell Zini in the coming days that he had “crossed a red line,” the report say.

The officials, who have continued serving in what the report describes as a reserve capacity, tell the network they plan to tell the Shin Bet chief: “Your decision to dismantle the memorial wall is a red line for us. It is something that should never have been done. We cannot continue as though nothing happened,” noting that their primary motivation for returning to service was the desire to help rehabilitate the organization after October 7.

There is also considerable anger among families of fallen Shin Bet personnel over the decision, the report adds.

One current official tells Channel 12: “We are here precisely to look the failure in the eye every day, even if Zini does not want to see it. That is the fuel for our work after October 7.”

The memorial was removed shortly after Israel’s Memorial Day in April, according to Haaretz, which quoted sources as saying Zini believed there was no reason agency employees should “have to see the debacle [of October 7] in front of our faces every day,” while another source said he viewed the display as an expression of “defeatism.”

The Shin Bet later confirmed that the memorial had been removed, saying Zini believed a display commemorating only some of those killed on October 7 did not adequately reflect the scale of the attack. The agency noted that a separate memorial wall honoring all victims of the massacre remains in place.