Jewish terror is jeopardizing Israel's existence: Shin Bet chief

In a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, government ministers and the attorney general, Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet security service, warned that Jewish terrorism was endangering Israel's existence.

Bar says that those he calls Jewish terrorists "want to cause the system to lose control, causing indescribable damage to Israel".

He also said that police incompetence and "perhaps a sense of hidden support" is increasing.

Bar added that perpetrators of these acts have lost any fear of administrative detention "due to the conditions they get in prison and the funds they receive after their release from [parliament] members as well as legitimacy and praise, alongside a delegitimisation campaign against the defence officials".

He also referred to far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque as a "spectacle" that could "to profuse bloodshed and change the state's face unrecognisably".

"We're on the threshold of a significant, reality-changing process," he wrote. "The damage to Israel, especially at this time, and to the majority of the settlers is indescribable: world delegitimisation even among our best friends, deploying [Israeli] forces at a time the army, which isn't meant to deal with these missions, is finding it difficult to carry out all its tasks.

"Revenge attacks that ignite another front in the multi-front war we're in, bringing more people into the terror circle to carry out their revenge. This is a slippery slope that strengthens the feeling of lack of governance, another difficulty in creating regional alliances that "are necessary to deal with the Shi'ite axis and above all: A large stain on Judaism and on all of us."