Shin Bet chief apologizes to bereaved families over memorial corner, but says closure stands

Shin Bet chief David Zini held a conversation on Thursday with families of service members killed on October 7, after the memorial corner in his office was removed. During the call, he said he had already decided to close it and carried out that decision before the most recent Memorial Day. He explained that while the fighting was intense, it had been right to keep the memorial in place, but that once the war had eased, it was no longer appropriate to “make distinctions” among the fallen.

Bereaved parents objected that they had not been informed in advance. “Why aren’t you informing us?” they asked. Zini apologized for not updating the families, but stressed that even if he had done so, the outcome would not change. He said he still does not intend to reverse the decision.

The move followed a report in Haaretz that Zini had ordered the dismantling of a memorial display at the entrance to the Shin Bet headquarters in Tel Aviv, dedicated to Shin Bet personnel killed since October 7. According to that report, he said there was no need to “see the failure every day,” and people around him described the display as reflecting “defeatism.”

In response, the Shin Bet said the October 7 failure was one of the biggest and most painful in Israel’s history, but argued that showing only some of the dead diminishes the scale of the disaster. It said the service’s main memorial wall already displays all fallen personnel, not just a small part of them.

Reut Adri, mother of Shin Bet fighter Idan Adri, who was murdered at the Nova festival, said that if the quotes are accurate, Zini’s words and actions continue a government narrative of erasing the massacre and abandoning the Shin Bet fighters even after death. She said the memorial mattered to her son and that anyone entering headquarters should be forced to confront the “huge failure” the service itself accepted responsibility for. She added that Zini should retract his “unforgivable” words and actions and that he would not succeed in erasing the memory of the murdered.