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    With No-Confidence Vote, Israeli Cabinet Moves to Fire Attorney General

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    Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, contends the top lawyer sought to undermine him. His critics in Israel call it part of a purge of those he considers disloyal.The Israeli cabinet passed a no-confidence motion on Sunday against the country’s attorney general to begin the process of dismissing her. Critics of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the move part of his effort to curb the independence of the judiciary and purge officials he considers disloyal.Mr. Netanyahu and his allies have accused the attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, of undermining them. The no-confidence vote against her, as well as the cabinet’s approval days before of the firing of Israel’s domestic intelligence chief, has rekindled street protests reminiscent of the upheaval over government plans to overhaul the judiciary before the war with Hamas began in 2023.In a letter addressed to the cabinet on Sunday, Ms. Baharav-Miara said the no-confidence motion was not part of the formal process that would be legally required for her removal. She added that Mr. Netanyahu’s government sought to put itself “above the law, to act without checks and balances, even at the most sensitive of times,” referring among other things to the war in Gaza.Legal experts say firing Ms. Baharav-Miara is likely to be a weekslong process because of longstanding checks meant to protect her role’s independence. Her dismissal would first have to be considered by a special appointments committee that is currently lacking some members and cannot convene until the vacancies are filled.The intelligence official Mr. Netanyahu moved against, Ronen Bar, sent a stinging letter to the government calling the process to fire him illegal and saying that the prime minister’s motives were “fundamentally flawed.”The country’s Supreme Court has frozen Mr. Bar’s dismissal pending a hearing.Mr. Netanyahu says he is strengthening Israeli democracy by curbing what he describes as overreach by unelected officials and giving more power to the elected government. But his opponents see the moves as part of a concerted effort by the prime minister to remove checks on his power and to eject those he views as personally disloyal.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Netanyahu Moves to Fire Israel’s Domestic Intelligence Chief

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      The Israeli prime minister’s effort to remove the Shin Bet chief is raising concerns about whether he was seeking to undermine the agency’s independence.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he was taking action to oust the director of the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, raising concerns among critics that he was seeking to undermine its independence.Mr. Netanyahu’s effort to fire Ronen Bar, the head of the powerful agency, underscored longstanding tensions between the prime minister and leading members of Israel’s security establishment, who have clashed over the handling of the war in Gaza.The decision to pursue Mr. Bar’s termination also came in the wake of Shin Bet investigations into allegations against several Netanyahu aides, including that one allegedly leaked a secret document to a foreign newspaper.The prime minister’s office said that Mr. Netanyahu had informed Mr. Bar that a draft resolution for his ouster would be presented to the Israeli cabinet this week for approval.But in a letter, Gali Baharav-Miara, the attorney general, said Mr. Netanyahu wasn’t allowed to even begin the process until a determination was made about the legality of terminating Mr. Bar. She said there were concerns that it would be a conflict of interest for Mr. Netanyahu. Members of Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition have demanded the prime minister fire Mr. Bar for what they say is his undermining of the prime minister. They have also called for firing Ms. Baharav-Miara, who has long had a strained relationship with Mr. Netanyahu.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sinwar’s Final Moments: On the Run, Hurt, Alone, but Still Defiant

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      Israeli forces had been steadily closing in on Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader, for weeks before he was cornered and killed in a ruined house in the Gaza Strip.At the end, the fearsome militant leader who had helped unleash a vicious war seemed barely a threat.In video captured by an Israeli drone, a man sat alone, badly wounded and caked in dust amid the ruins of a building in the Gaza Strip, wrapped in a kaffiyeh and staring directly into the camera. The man, Israeli officials say, was Yahya Sinwar, the chief of Hamas.The stare-down lasted some 20 seconds, then the man limply but defiantly hurled a broken piece of wood toward the drone. Not long afterward, officials say, an Israeli soldier shot him in the head, and a tank shell flattened part of the building.So ended the long hunt for one of the world’s most wanted men. It began hours after the brutal Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that Mr. Sinwar helped orchestrate, and concluded amid the destruction of a Rafah neighborhood resembling so many parts of Gaza, leveled by the Israeli military in the year since.The manhunt involved Israeli commandos and spies, as well as a special unit established inside the headquarters of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence service, and at the Central Intelligence Agency. It used a sophisticated electronic surveillance dragnet and ground-penetrating radar provided by the United States.New details about Mr. Sinwar’s movements over the past year have emerged since his death, including the fact that Israeli intelligence officers had seen mounting evidence since August that Mr. Sinwar, or possibly other top Hamas leaders, might be in Rafah’s Tel al-Sultan neighborhood.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Israeli Hostage Rescue, Minutes Made the Difference

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      When a truck carrying three of the four rescued hostages broke down and came under fire, Israel says it called in an airstrike. Scores of Palestinians, including children, were killed during the operation, according to Gazan officials.When the four Israelis woke up in Gaza on Saturday, they had been held hostage by Hamas for 245 days. The buildings in which they were being kept, two low-rise, concrete apartment blocks, looked much like the other nearby residences in a civilian neighborhood full of Palestinian families.Within a few hours, the captives, three men and one woman, would be reunited with their own families, the result of a risky, long-planned rescue operation in which the full might of the Israeli military would be used to devastating effect.“I’m so emotional,” one hostage, Noa Argamani, 26, told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in a phone call after her release. “It’s been so long since I heard Hebrew.”The rescue effort in Nuseirat involved hundreds of intelligence officers and two teams of commandos who simultaneously stormed the homes in which the hostages were being held, the Israeli military said.In one apartment, where the male hostages were imprisoned, a firefight broke out between the soldiers and the Hamas guards, according to the military and video footage it released of the encounter. Later, and under a hail of gunfire, the truck in which three hostages and a wounded Israeli officer were being evacuated broke down and was surrounded by militants, Israeli officials said.In an effort to give the rescuers enough time and ample cover to get the captives to freedom, the military said, the air force began striking dozens of nearby targets. Many Palestinians became aware of the fighting only when they heard bombs exploding. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More