Netanyahu again claimed he acted ‘blamelessly’ before the attack, releasing selected quotes from security cabinet meetings as ‘evidence’. However, the excerpts – which only he can clear for release – are heavily redacted, contradict his earlier statements, and were condemned by opposition MKs as ‘manipulations and distortions’
Haaretz
In his latest attempt at distancing himself from responsibility for the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7th, Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday released excerpts from security cabinet meetings that reiterate his previous claim that, although the defense establishment ‘failed’ in its security assessments ahead of the October 7 attack, he had fulfilled his responsibilities.
Netanyahu said the transcripts were part of a document he submitted in December to the State Comptroller’s Office for its probe into the attack. The redacted transcripts, dating from the 2014 Gaza war up until the morning of October 7, 2023, include select quotes from confidential security cabinet meetings.
Unlike Netanyahu, other participants in security cabinet meetings are not cleared to disclose what was said there or in sessions that the prime minister chose not to mention in the document.
The document highlights instances when Netanyahu requested the killing of Hamas and other terror group leaders, while defense officials argued that Hamas had been deterred and pursued measures to ease civilian and economic restrictions to keep the front calm.
The released transcripts present Netanyahu as having warned others about a wide-scale attack by Hamas in the period leading up to October 7, 2023, despite other participants in the security cabinet meetings expressing the view that the situation in Gaza was stable.
According to the document, the defense establishment presented the above-ground and underground barriers along the border with the Gaza Strip as the best response to the threats from Hamas.
It further claims that the prime minister never received any warnings about the expected attack on October 7; Shin Bet security service forces were instructed on the night before the attack to avoid large-scale operations; and defense officials concealed from him the ‘Walls of Jericho’ document – Hamas’ operational order for an invasion of Israel – as well as the fact that Palestinian forces were training ahead of the attacks.
For example, in a meeting in August 2023, before the Jewish high holy days, Netanyahu is quoted as saying, ‘I’m worried that the Palestinians’ bragging is not just bragging, and that we will face it very soon, we’ll face it on the holidays.’
The document released by Netanyahu also quotes from a Military Intelligence assessment on October 3, 2023, that states that Hamas had not found an effective alternative to the tunnels, and ‘the Palestinians will not be the driving force behind a multi-front campaign.’
According to Netanyahu, every one of Israel’s intelligence agencies had said Hamas was deterred.
In one of the quotes Netanyahu released, former Shin Bet head Ronen Bar said in a meeting eight months before the massacre: ‘Yahya Sinwar is a realistic leader, he is not ready for a war of resurrection.’
Yoav Gallant, the defense minister at the time, added: ‘Hamas in Gaza has lost significant capabilities. … For example, going through the sea routes, going through the tunnels, breaking through in above-ground operations … all these things are not [possible] in its eyes.’
The document contradicts the prime minister’s public statements ahead of the October 7 massacre, in which Netanyahu had told the press that Hamas was deterred and minimized alerts of an impending war.
‘I think it is exaggerated,’ he said in an interview with Channel 14 in April 2023, regarding a warning from Military Intelligence about a possible confrontation. In May, Netanyahu said that Operation Guardian of the Walls, the conflict in Gaza in May 2021, ‘landed the hardest blow on Hamas in its history [and] led to a change in the equation of deterrence, and it has been working for over two years. … Since Guardian of the Walls, Hamas has not fired a single rocket into our territory. They are deterred.’
The document also includes quotes from a meeting around a month before October 7, 2023, by Military Intelligence officials, former IDF Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi, and Gallant, who say they are not concerned about an attack from Gaza.
But this section does not contain any quotes from Netanyahu himself from the meeting.
Netanyahu also approved the release of a document from around two weeks before the massacre, according to which Military Intelligence and the Israel Defense Force’s Southern Command wrote: ‘Hamas’ strategy is to preserve the quiet stability in Gaza for the foreseeable future.’
In a different security cabinet session, which was held just 10 days before October 7, Bar said Hamas ‘very much did not want to enter a round of fighting,’ and Gallant recommended continuing attempts to reach arrangements with Hamas.
In a meeting held on October 1, 2023, just six days before the Hamas attack, a representative of Military Intelligence said the protests along the border fence with Gaza, which had been held earlier, had come to an end because of Sinwar’s intention to ‘return to quiet.’
According to the transcript, Netanyahu responded, ‘We need to say they were also surprised by the ease with which they immediately received these things. … Now, in their view, Israel is malleable and giving in to them. This process can lead to their applying pressure again.’
In response, Bar said: ‘I don’t think we will be able in this entire constellation we know of here to go for a round [of fighting] at our initiative.’ Gallant said: ‘The main danger in the Palestinian arena currently lies in unrestrained Israeli decisions or actions.’
According to Netanyahu, a Shin Bet document written about an hour before the October 7 attack began noted that Netanyahu’s military secretary should be updated about the developments during the night. However, this does not appear in the original document.
Netanyahu’s document rejects the claim that Hamas chose the date because of the internal rift in Israeli society, and said the intelligence rules this out completely.
But the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee representative said on Thursday that earlier that day, Netanyahu had presented materials on ‘the question of when Hamas had made the decision to turn the idea of an attack into an operational plan, and if the domestic dispute in Israel was related.’
The document also presents quotes from a security cabinet meeting at the height of the 2014 conflict in Gaza, Operation Protective Edge, where Netanyahu supported conquering Gaza. Others who participated in the session, some of whom are Netanyahu’s political rivals today, fiercely opposed this.
At the time, Finance Minister Naftali Bennett, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Deputy IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen voiced opposition to such a step, opposing that the idea even be voted on.
But in the long list of quotes published by Netanyahu, some paint the opposite picture.
When describing the ‘root causes’ of the failures of October 7, the document says that the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 and the Gaza disengagement in 2005 worsened Israel’s security situation and signaled to terrorist organizations that they were achieving their objectives.
The document reiterates the claim that Netanyahu opposed the disengagement plan, even though Netanyahu actually voted in support of the plan several times in the Knesset, and only resigned from Ariel Sharon’s government on the eve of it being carried out.
Netanyahu had also been informed in the past about a Hamas plan for a limited raid by its elite forces on Israeli communities near the border using tunnels. He warned the State Control Committee about it in 2016, and at the time, he ordered the construction of the underground barrier along the border, which was later built.
Regarding the transfer of cash from Qatar to Hamas, the document released by Netanyahu says the grants ‘did not directly fund terrorism’. All the heads of the defense establishment had supported transferring the funds, and warned that freezing them would lead to an escalation in violence.
In his announcement about the document’s release, Netanyahu once again attacked the High Court of Justice for issuing an interim order halting the state comptroller’s probe.
‘For nearly two years, the comptroller worked with full autonomy, without any interference from the judiciary or anyone else,’ he wrote on Facebook, in English. ‘Yet just six days after I submitted this response, the High Court decided to grant the attorney general’s request to immediately halt the comptroller’s work – work aimed at uncovering the truth.
‘Is this a coincidence? I say a simple thing: You be the judge,’ he said. Called to lift the High Court’s orders, he said State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman’s inquiry should be reinstated. In December, Israel’s High Court of Justice sided with the military and a good governance group that petitioned to suspend the comptroller’s investigation over the office’s overreach and potential damage to future probes.
The document also called for a political commission of inquiry that ‘the public, through its representatives, [shall] determine [its] membership.’
The Netanyahu government has proposed to establish a politicized national commission of inquiry, rather than a traditional and impartial state commission of inquiry, to investigate the failures surrounding October 7, 2023.
Politicians mentioned in the document rejected Netanyahu’s claims after its release on Thursday.
Gallant called Netanyahu’s claims lies. He also said Netanyahu had not agreed to his request to bring the attack against Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah in September 2024 to a vote, and Netanyahu said he would discuss the matter only after he returned from his trip to the United States.
Just a day later, ‘in light of the threats from ministers to dismantle the government,’ did Netanyahu order the operation, Gallant said. ‘It’s no wonder that Netanyahu opposes a state commission of inquiry. … It would certainly expose his lies.’
Former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman also attacked Netanyahu’s release of the document.
‘The moment the full minutes are revealed, and not just half-truths he has chosen to leak this evening to flee from responsibility, everyone will understand the truth,’ he wrote on X. ‘The person who formulated the failed preconception, the person who approved the cash-filled suitcases to Hamas, the person who granted immunity to the heads of terrorism – is Benjamin Netanyahu.’
Gadi Eisenkot said the document was full of ‘manipulations, distortions and fragments of quotes from the past.’
The October Council, a forum made up of people whose family members were killed on October 7, harshly criticized the released document.
‘We reject the attempt by the prime minister, one of the leading people to be investigated by the state commission of inquiry to be established, to publicize carefully selected, censored and partial minutes,’ the group wrote. ‘It’s simple: Anyone who wants to find the truth establishes an official state commission of inquiry. Whoever wants to bury it releases a stack of documents lacking context and significance.’