Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the dismissal of the head of the Shin Bet internal security service – a move temporarily blocked by the country’s top court.

Israel’s government voted in favour of Mr Netanyahu’s proposal to sack Ronen Bar – despite thousands protesting against it and criticising the prime minister’s handling of the hostage crisis.

But Mr Bar got a brief reprieve hours after the vote, as the Supreme Court said it was delaying the firing until an appeal could be heard no later than 8 April.

The prime minister’s office had said Mr Bar’s dismissal was effective from 10 April, but that it could come earlier if a replacement was found.

It would be the first time a head of Shin Bet has been sacked in Israel’s history.

Israel’s attorney general has ruled that the cabinet has no legal basis to dismiss Mr Bar.

The cabinet vote came as thousands protested outside Mr Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem on Thursday over his handling of the hostage situation and his plans to fire Mr Bar.

There were also protests calling for the release of hostages near his residence on Friday.

“Instead of firing the head of the Shin Bet, just to avoid an investigation, I think that the prime minister should be involved in rescuing the last hostages there are left in Gaza to die,” said Michal Halperin, a protester.

The prime minister is facing mounting pressure at home after resuming airstrikes in Gaza earlier this week, bringing an end to a fragile ceasefire with Hamas which had brought relative peace to the region for almost two months.

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Announcing his plans to sack Mr Bar, Mr Netanyahu said he had “ongoing distrust” in the head of Shin Bet.

Mr Bar, who has headed the agency since 2021, was until recently one of the senior negotiators for Israel with mediators in Egypt and Qatar.

He was replaced by Ron Dermer, strategic affairs minister and a close confidante of the prime minister’s, because Mr Netanyahu believed he was too soft in negotiations and leaked information to embarrass the government.

Mr Bar accepted responsibility for his failure to prevent the 7 October attacks and had already indicated he would step down once all the hostages were freed and a number of sensitive investigations were completed.

Israel has said Hamas’ military intelligence chief in southern Gaza has been “eliminated”.

In a post on X, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said Osama Tabash was also head of the group’s surveillance and targeting unit.

It said he was responsible for “planning and coordinating targets and infiltration objectives” during the October 2023 terror attack and was in charge of “combat strategy on the ground”.

It did not say when or where he was killed and Hamas has not commented on the claim.

It comes as Israel’s defence minister said he had ordered ground forces to advance deeper into Gaza and to hold more land in an effort to pressure Hamas to free more hostages.

“The more Hamas continues its refusal to release the kidnapped, the more territory it will lose to Israel,” said Israel Katz.

Israel resumed airstrikes a few days ago after an extension to the ceasefire that had seen Israeli hostages swapped for Palestinian prisoners could not be agreed.

The truce was supposed to continue as long as talks on the second phase continued, but Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu refused to enter substantive negotiations.

Nearly 600 Palestinians have now been killed since Tuesday – many of them children, according to Gaza health authorities.

Israel has said it will escalate operations until Hamas releases the 59 hostages it still holds – 24 of whom are believed alive – and gives up control of Gaza.

On Thursday, after retaking part of the Netzarim corridor that divides Gaza’s north from south, Israeli troops moved towards the town of Beit Lahiya, as well as the southern border city of Rafah.

Israel also said it had resumed enforcing a blockade on northern Gaza, including Gaza City.

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Meanwhile, an explosion on Friday east of Gaza City killed a couple and their two children, plus another two children not related to them but in the same building, according to witnesses and a local hospital.

The Israeli military said it had targeted a militant in a Gaza City building – with steps taken to minimise civilian harm.

It was not clear if it was referring to the same strike.

Israel also said it planned to conduct raids in three neighbourhoods west of Gaza City and warned Palestinians to evacuate in advance.

The warning came shortly after it said it had intercepted two rockets that set off sirens in the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon.

Five jihadists have been found guilty of holding French journalists captive in Syria for the terror group Islamic State.

One of the guilty, Mehdi Nemmouche, 39, has been described by the prosecution as “one of the most perverse and cruel jihadists of the past 10 years” with a “total absence of empathy and remorse.”

“Yes, I was a terrorist, and I will never apologise for it,” Nemmouche told the court in France hours before the verdict was due, while denying he held the men captive.

“I don’t regret a day, an hour, or an act,” he added.

Nemmouche was sentenced to life in prison, and will serve a minimum of 22 years behind bars. Abdelmalek Tanem was given 22 years and Kais Al Abdullah was sentenced to 20 years.

Meanwhile, Oussama Atar and Salim Benghalem, who are both referred to as integral figures in the Islamic State‘s operations and believed to be dead were sentenced to life in absentia.

The trial in Paris heard that journalists Didier Francois, Edouard Elias, Nicolas Henin, and Pierre Torres were terrorised during their 10 months in captivity between June 2013 and April 2014.

The four spoke of relentless physical and psychological torture at the hands of ISIS.

During their imprisonment, they were forced to watch the executions of other captives and endure beatings while surrounded by the screams of fellow detainees.

Nicolas Henin was snatched in the Syrian city of Raqqa with photographer Pierre Torres in 2013.

He told Sky News he was just “taken off the streets”.

During his time in captivity, he met American journalist James Foley and British aid worker David Haines, both of whom were later murdered by the notorious British ISIS militants “the Beatles”.

“We were a total of 24. Nineteen men held in one cell and five women in another one…and the plan was to start everything with an execution,” he says.

He remembers the first person executed on the day they arrived was a Russian man, but the murders would continue.

At times, their captors also carried out mock executions, dragging their terrified prisoners out for fake beheadings or leaving them in the boiling sun for hours during mock crucifixions.

“All our captors treated us badly. It is not only about beatings or torture; to keep someone captured in the dark sometimes blindfolded is enough,” Mr Henin said.

Throughout the trial, Nemmouche has always denied being their jailer, but the four former hostages recognised him.

Edouard Elias said he remembers him tormenting them for hours with constant chatter and singing French songs.

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Nicolas Henin will never forget his face or his manner.

“[He’s] sadistic, narcissistic, and I would say ‘gamer’ because for him nothing is serious. Everything is a game. He wants to win everything…he plays with the court,” he said.

Nemmouche is already serving a life sentence for the fatal attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels in May 2014.

He carried out the killings for ISIS a few weeks after the French journalists were released.

“This man, who fancies himself intelligent, is devoid of any human sentiment,” Prosecutor Benjamin Chambre said, describing him as a “real sociopath”.

It’s more than a decade since the journalists spent months witnessing and enduring the darkest and cruellest acts of humanity.

Asked how he managed to survive, Nicolas Henin paid tribute to his fellow hostages David Haines and James Foley who he says supported him mentally while he was detained.

Ahead of the verdict, he called for sentences that reflected the gravity of the crimes inflicted on them.

And what of the men who seemingly take joy in inflicting such pain and suffering – are they evil?

That’s what they need us to believe, he explains.

“It’s part of the game of terrorists to terrorise people. They need us to believe that they are not human.

“We have to look for the humanity still in them to prevent ourselves being totally petrified by fear facing them,” Mr Henin adds, refusing to be cowed.

“I prevent myself from feeling any hatred against them as much as any fear,” he says.