Netanyahu Warned of Threats Ahead of October 7, Deliberately Failed to Act, Fmr Israeli PM Says
19:25 GMT 29.08.2024 (Updated: 19:26 GMT 29.08.2024)
© AP Photo / Debbie Hill
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Benjamin Netanyahu has spent almost a year feigning ignorance of warnings from the military and intelligence that Hamas was preparing a surprise incursion into Israel in response to the blockade of Gaza. Last December, US media reported that Israel obtained a 40-page Hamas battle plan, codenamed ‘Jericho Wall’, over a year before the attack.
Former Israeli prime minister and opposition leader Yair Lapid dropped a political bombshell on Thursday, endorsing months of reporting citing anonymous officials that Prime Minister Netanyahu knew about reports of Hamas’s plans to attack but did nothing to respond.
“During the months leading up to the [October 7, 2023] disaster, the prime minister and cabinet ministers received a series of serious, unprecedented warnings. From the middle of 2023 there were more and more voices with in the terrorist organizations that said that the moment they had been waiting for had arrived,” Lapid said in testimony before an independent civilian commission of inquiry in Tel Aviv on Thursday.
“Those voices were noted in intelligence assessments and in IDF, Shin Bet and Mossad deliberations. There were a number of voices in Israel who said they have the capability, they have the desire, and now they are identifying the opportunity they have sought for so long,” Lapid said.
Seeking to “refute” longstanding claims by the government that it was not aware of Hamas’s looming offensive, Lapid said it was informed, and that he, as leader of the opposition, was also informed, including through a security briefing on August 21, 2023 by prime ministerial military advisor Avi Gil on the plans of Israel’s enemies, and the perceived “weakness on the Israeli side.”
Lapid indicated that while he had found the warning “extraordinary,” the “prime minister – and here I am giving only a personal impression, so it can be disputed – seemed bored and indifferent on the issue, and did not comment on it” at the time.
Lapid said he received additional classified intelligence on September 18, 2023 through the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee warning that “Israeli deterrence has eroded dramatically” and that “our enemies think they have a rare opportunity to harm us,” with Israel being “at the greatest level of danger.”
This, Lapid said, prompted his September 20, 2023 public warning that Israel was “drawing close to a multifront confrontation,” in which he said that “according to the security establishment, the number of alerts in Judea and Samaria is unprecedented.”
Lapid accused Netanyahu of ignoring a clear and present danger highlighted by the intelligence and defense establishments, and slammed the PM over the appointment of cabinet ministers, including Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, whom Lapid said “should not be anywhere near Israel’s sacred security.”
Netanyahu’s office dismissed Lapid’s allegations, saying in a statement that the prime minister “did not receive any warning about the war in Gaza,” that “the opposite is true and the protocols prove it.”
“Lapid, who brought in workers from Gaza and gave free gas to [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah while promising that this would prevent war, is the last one who can preach in matters of security,” the PM’s office said, referring to Lapid’s shortlived July-December 2022 tenure as Israel’s prime minister.
Thursday’s testimony was the second time in a week that Lapid has publicly attacked Netanyahu on October 7.
Last week, in an interview with the Times of Israel, the opposition leader said “all the signs, all the red flags, all the warnings” were there ahead of the attack, but Netanyahu willfully “ignored them all.”
Fast forward to today, Lapid accused Netanyahu of deliberately stalling negotiations with Hamas on a ceasefire deal and hostage exchange to prevent his coalition from falling apart, saying the addition of new conditions – particularly the demand for permanent control of the Philadelphi Corridor border between Gaza and Egypt, was connected to his desire to remain in power.
“The war started on October 7. He, as the prime minister, sent troops to the Philadelphi Corridor in May. That is, almost eight months afterwards. For eight months, [he] didn’t think the Philadelphi Corridor is the most important thing. All of a sudden, this is the only thing that matters. I’m not saying that the Philadelphi Corridor is not important. It is important. [But] it is way more important to finalize the hostage deal,” Lapid said, suggesting that it’s well past time for the prime minister to resign.
Nearly 42,000 people, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, have been killed to date in the Israel-Hamas conflict sparked by the October 7, 2023 Hamas incursion into southern Israel, which the Palestinian militia said it carried out in response to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, provocations at the Al-Aqsa Mosque holy site in Jerusalem, and the blockade of Gaza. Over 40,400 of the victims to date have been Palestinians – the vast majority of them civilians. Close to 1,500 Israelis, including civilians, troops, police and hostages, have been killed.
