Shin Bet chief orders memorial display removed and gay affinity group shut down

The Shin Bet confirmed Wednesday that its director, David Zini, ordered the removal of a memorial corner at the agency’s headquarters that had honored employees killed on October 7 and afterward. The agency said Zini viewed displaying only some of the fallen as diminishing the scale of the failure, and stressed that a memorial wall in headquarters already honors all of the agency’s dead. According to Haaretz, the order came after the latest Memorial Day and was justified as a way to avoid confronting the October 7 failure every day. People around Zini were quoted as calling the memorial corner “defeatist.”

The display had been set up by Shin Bet employees and included photos and tributes to personnel killed in the Hamas massacre and after it, as well as to war dead whose parents work for the agency. Twelve Shin Bet employees were killed on and after October 7, including at the Nova music festival. Smadar Idan, the wife of ynet photographer Roy Idan, who worked for the Shin Bet, was also murdered in her home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Additional Shin Bet employees were killed fighting Hamas militants in the south and in Gaza.

A separate report on Keshet 12 said Zini also ordered cancellation of all Pride Month activities at the Shin Bet, leading to rejection of some requests submitted by the agency’s gay affinity group. The report said the head of human resources was instructed to move all budget allocated to LGBTQ-related matters into the general agency budget and effectively close the group. The Shin Bet said no formal request had reached the director’s office, but added that employees remain free to gather and host a lecture of their choice if it complies with service rules, which have not changed under the current chief.

Political reactions followed. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called the group’s activity “progressive agendas” and said security agencies should focus only on core defense missions. Minister Amichai Chikli said the army and Shin Bet are not universities or political organizations and should not promote gender or LGBTQ agendas. Former Shin Bet employee Yaron, who came out at work in 2008, condemned the decision, saying the agency had been accepting and that the move was illegal and outrageous.