Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was expected on Thursday to formally fire the head of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency, despite growing street protests and scuffles over the move that have further roiled a deeply divided country still at war.
The Israeli cabinet was set to convene for a nighttime vote on the dismissal of the Shin Bet chief, Ronen Bar, just days after Mr. Netanyahu announced his intention to oust him, citing a lack of personal trust between them.
It comes after Israel’s military resumed a deadly campaign in Gaza that has raised concern among many Israelis about the fates of hostages still held in the enclave. Sirens warning of incoming rocket fire from Gaza sent Israelis in the Tel Aviv area running for cover on Thursday for the first time in months.
The Shin Bet is deeply involved in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, providing intelligence and targets. By law, the agency is also tasked with protecting Israeli democracy.
The discord between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Bar goes to the heart of a broader battle playing out over the nature and future of Israel’s democracy and the rule of law. Critics of Mr. Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, the most right-wing and religiously conservative in Israel’s history, accuse it of working to reduce the authority of independent state watchdogs and to remove checks and balances on the powers of the government, which holds a narrow majority in Parliament.
The firing of Mr. Bar on grounds of personal trust has also raised public concerns that future appointments may be based primarily on loyalty to the prime minister.
Thousands protested in Jerusalem on Wednesday in anticipation of the move, and more protests took place on Thursday. By lunchtime, a long column of academics had marched in stormy weather from a campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem toward one of Mr. Netanyahu’s private residences, beating on drums, chanting, “Democracy!” and scuffling with police officers after trying to break through a barricade.
Some prominent opposition figures joined the demonstrators. Video footage from the scene showed police officers aggressively pushing protesters, including Yair Golan, a former deputy chief of the military and now the leader of the center-left Democrats party, who ended up on the ground. The police used a water cannon and sprayed protesters with a foul-smelling liquid in an effort to disperse them.
The new protests recall weekly demonstrations in 2023 against attempts to overhaul the judiciary to reduce its power as a check on the government, with business leaders at one point joining labor unions to hold a national strike. Those protests came to an abrupt halt with the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that ignited the war on Oct. 7, 2023, though the broad sense of national solidarity that prevailed then is now fraying.
Mr. Netanyahu and his allies have made accusations of overreach against the judiciary and other independent branches, saying that they have hampered the government’s freedom to make decisions and to represent the will of voters.
Mr. Netanyahu has been under police investigation and is on trial on charges of corruption, which he denies. He has repeatedly accused a liberal “deep state” of conducting a witch hunt against him and his family.
For months, Mr. Bar had angered Mr. Netanyahu by investigating officials in the prime minister’s office over claims that they had leaked secret documents to the media and also worked for people connected to Qatar, an Arab state close to Hamas. The investigation, called “Qatargate” in the local news media, is continuing in secrecy under a sweeping gag order.
Mr. Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing and his office has dismissed the episode as “fake news.” The Qatari government did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Bar, who has led the Shin Bet since 2021, issued a rare public statement last week, after Mr. Netanyahu’s announcement, saying that the expectation of “personal trust” was in opposition to the public interest.
“It’s a fundamentally flawed expectation that is in contravention with the Shin Bet law and statesmanship,” Mr. Bar said.
Mr. Bar and the Shin Bet have taken responsibility for their part in the intelligence failure that led to the Hamas-led attack, which resulted in the deadliest single day for Israelis since the foundation of their state in 1948.
But in a summary of the agency’s internal probe into its conduct issued earlier this month, the Shin Bet also pointed to years of lenient government policy toward Hamas and Gaza as a major contributing factor, likely angering Mr. Netanyahu.
Appearing emboldened domestically, as well as in Gaza, by the staunch support of the U.S. administration, Mr. Netanyahu made common cause with President Trump in a blunt social media post late Wednesday.
“In America and in Israel, when a strong right wing leader wins an election, the leftist Deep State weaponizes the justice system to thwart the people’s will,” he wrote. “They won’t win in either place! We stand strong together.”
The billionaire Elon Musk, a close ally of Mr. Trump, replied with a red “100” emoji, suggesting that he agreed with Mr. Netanyahu.
Many Israelis view the country’s democracy as increasingly fragile. Israel has no formal written constitution, only one legislative chamber and a president whose role is mostly ceremonial and symbolic.
By taking the vote straight to the government on Thursday, Mr. Netanyahu was also defying a legal opinion of the attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, who advised that the dismissal of Mr. Bar must first be approved by an advisory committee that oversees senior appointments.
Ms. Baharav-Miara, who was appointed by the previous government, has frequently clashed with the current one. Prominent members of Mr. Netanyahu’s cabinet have said that after Mr. Bar’s removal, the attorney general will be the next.
The families of hostages still held in Gaza, up to 24 of whom are believed to be alive, have expressed outrage and alarm over what they view as Mr. Netanyahu’s misguided priorities, as well as the collapse of a temporary cease-fire and the renewed military campaign.
“First, return the hostages. Everything else comes after!” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a grass-roots organization that advocates on behalf of captives and their relatives, said in a statement on Thursday. The forum described the hostages as being “in danger of death and disappearance in the Hamas tunnels in Gaza.”
Myra Noveck in Jerusalem and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad in Haifa, Israel, contributed reporting.
