Zini orders Shin Bet to dismantle unofficial memorial for agency staff killed on Oct. 7

Shin Bet chief David Zini has ordered the dismantling of a memorial established in the Shin Bet headquarters for the agency’s employees killed in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack, the Haaretz daily reports.

According to unnamed sources cited by the Hebrew news outlet, Zini gave the order after Memorial Day in April, telling employees that there was no reason they should “have to see the failure [of October 7] right in front of our eyes every day.”

Another source is quoted as saying that Zini believes the memorial to the fallen Shin Bet agents is a show of “defeatism.”

The informal memorial corner established in the security agency’s Tel Aviv headquarters featured photos of Shin Bet employees killed during the massacre, as well as photos of victims whose parents served in the Shin Bet, Haaretz says.

In response to Haaretz, the Shin Bet confirms that Zini decided to dismantle the memorial, saying he did so because he believed that “displaying only some of the fallen minimized the failure and reflects only part of the terrible disaster that befell us.”

It says there is an official memorial elsewhere in the headquarters “on which all of the fallen are displayed, not just a small portion of them.”

Zini has made a string of controversial decisions since entering the role in October 2025.

Yesterday, Channel 12 reported that he ordered the cancellation of a planned Pride Month event within the agency and took away the budget of the organization’s LGBTQ employee group.