Yes, in this case.

Summary: The hash-bang line (also called "shebang" and other things) is only ever needed if it's in an executable script that is run without explicitly specifying its interpreter (as when executing a binary executable file).

In this case you're explicitly running the script within the here-document with `bash` already. There's no need to add the hash-bang as it will be treated as a comment.

In the case of `#!/bin/bash -x`, you will have to use `set -x` inside the here-document to get the same effect as running the here-document as its own script, again, because the hash-bang is treated as a comment.

The hash-bang line is used when executing an executable text file. The line tells the system what interpreter to use to execute it, and optionally allows you to specify one argument to that interpreter (`-x` in your case).

You _do_ need the hash-bang there if you're writing the here-document to a file that will later be used as a script. Such a file also has to be made executable. But again, if you were to explicitly execute that script with `bash` (as `bash ./myscript` or `bash -x ./myscript` or whatever), no hash-bang is needed (and the script would not have to be made executable).

See also the Wikipedia entry for [Shebang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shebang_(Unix)).