The stand-off between Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the head of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency, Ronen Bar, has further intensified, with each man accusing the other of lies or inaccuracies in sworn depositions.

Netanyahu announced the dismissal of Bar last month, but the attorney general and the opposition have appealed against the move to the Supreme Court, which has effectively frozen it for now.

On Sunday, Netanyahu issued an affidavit for the court, in which he described Bar as a liar.

It followed an affidavit from Bar a few days earlier, in which he had accused the prime minister of demanding personal loyalty and ordering the Shin Bet to spy on anti-government protesters.

The confrontation has further exposed the deepening rifts in Israeli politics and society between the right-wing and hardliners supporting Netanyahu and the more liberal elements in the country, who took to the streets to protest against the government's moves to curb the powers of the judiciary for many months before the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attacks that sparked the Gaza war.

It centres on Netanyahu's insistence that he fired the Shin Bet head for professional failures.

Bar has countered by saying that his dismissal was motivated by political and personal considerations.

In his affidavit last week, the spy chief said that it was "clear" that if there were to be a constitutional crisis, Netanyahu would expect him to obey the prime minister and not the courts.

He also said Netanyahu had put pressure on him to use the Shin Bet to spy on Israelis leading or providing financial support to anti-government protests.

Many in Israel reacted with alarm, saying it was evidence of what appeared to be an unprecedented effort to overstep the powers of the domestic intelligence agency.

Now in his affidavit, which functions as a form of rebuttal, Netanyahu in his turn excoriated the Shin Bet head.

"The accusation according to which I allegedly demanded action against innocent civilians, or against a non-violent and legitimate protest during the protests of 2023, is an absolute lie," he said.

Netanyahu also trained his sights on the security failures in the lead-up to and during the 7 October attacks, saying that Bar bore "massive and direct responsibility" for them and had "failed in his role as chief of Shin Bet and lost the confidence of the entire Israeli government as far as his ability to continue to manage the organisation".

Bar immediately responded in kind in a statement, saying Netanyahu's affidavit was "full of inaccuracies, biased quotes and half-truths aimed at taking things out of context and changing reality".

To make its ruling on the dismissal of Bar, the Supreme Court may have to make a choice between which of the two conflicting affidavits it deems to be more credible.

Or the court may seek to defuse the crisis to some extent by finding a mechanism and a date by which Bar might agree to step down,

But the issues which have been exposed in the fierce recriminations between the two men have once again focused attention on the increasing bitterness between opposed sections of Israeli society.

These have been further exacerbated by the ever-growing fault line between those who support Netanyahu and his hard-line government in wanting to continue the war in Gaza to eliminate Hamas at all costs, and those who believe the fate of the living Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas must be put first, even if it means ending the war.