Shin Bet chief apologizes to bereaved families over memorial removal, but says decision stands

Shin Bet chief David Zini held a tense discussion on Thursday with families of officers killed on October 7, after ordering the removal of a memorial corner from his office. He said he had already made and implemented the decision before the last Memorial Day. Zini explained that while the fighting was still intense it made sense to leave the memorial in place, but as the war eased he believed it was no longer right to maintain what he described as unequal treatment, and he said he would not reverse the move.

During the call, bereaved parents protested that they had not been informed in advance. “Why did you not tell us?” they asked. Zini apologized for failing to update them and said he should have done so, but stressed that notification would not have changed his decision.

The uproar followed a report in Haaretz that Zini had ordered dismantling a memorial display at the entrance to the Shin Bet headquarters in Tel Aviv, dedicated to agency personnel killed since October 7. According to the report, he argued that the ongoing presence of the memorial meant “not having the failure in front of our eyes every day,” while people around him were quoted as saying the display reflected “defeatism.”

In response, the Shin Bet said the October 7 failure was “one of the biggest and most painful failures the State of Israel has known.” It said the chief’s view was that showing only some of the fallen diminishes the scale of the disaster, and noted that the headquarters already has a memorial wall displaying all the fallen, not just a small part of them.

Reut Adri, mother of Shin Bet officer Idan Adri, who was murdered at the Nova music festival, said that if the quotes were accurate, Zini’s words and actions continued the “government narrative” of erasing the massacre. She added that her son loved the Shin Bet building and that everyone entering it should see the “huge failure” the service itself accepted responsibility for, saying, “You will not succeed in erasing the memory of the murdered.”