The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) vigorously denied media reports on Thursday that Israel’s premier had received advanced warning from the Israel Defense Forces’ Military Intelligence Directorate of a possible attack by Hamas from the Gaza Strip.
The reports were based on four documents obtained from the IDF by a freedom-of-information request by Israeli NGO Hatzlaha: The Movement for the Promotion of a Fair Society.
The PMO immediately released a statement disputing that the documents contained any warning of an attack. “The claim that Netanyahu allegedly received a warning from the research division of Military Intelligence about a possible attack from Gaza is the opposite of the truth,” the PMO stated.
“Not only is there no warning in any of the documents about Hamas’s intentions to attack Israel from Gaza, but they give a completely opposite assessment,” the PMO stressed.
In the first reference, dated March 19, 2023, IDF intelligence said Hamas’s strategy was to leave the Gaza Strip “on the back burner” and focus the fight against Israel “from other arenas,” according to the PMO.
In the second reference, on May 31, military intelligence recommended that Israel join a “regional de-escalation trend” and “take a step forward toward a peaceful arrangement with the Gaza Strip and the Hamas sovereign.”
“All of the security bodies consistently supported these assessments that Hamas was not interested in escalation but in an arrangement with Israel and that Hamas was deterred,” the PMO said.
The PMO addressed a second claim in the documents that he had been warned about the negative image projected to Israel’s enemies by the country’s lack of unity.
“During 2023, between March and July, four different warning letters were passed by the intelligence directorate, which showed how Israel’s enemies across theaters viewed the harm to cohesion in the State of Israel and the IDF in particular,” the IDF said in the documents provided to NGO Hatzlaha.
The “harm to cohesion” referred to the social upheaval surrounding the government’s judicial reform program, announced at the start of 2023. It has been blamed by some observers for encouraging Israel’s enemies to attack.
In response, the PMO said that Netanyahu himself warned “many times” about the dangers of the ongoing protests and civil disobedience against judicial reform. “For example, on 17 July 2023 the Prime Minister warned that the internal debate ‘is gnawing away at our deterrence against our enemies who could be tempted to act aggressively against us,’” the PMO said.
On April 2, 2023, Netanyahu cautioned Israel’s enemies directly, saying at a cabinet meeting, “I suggest that our enemies not err. Israel’s internal debate will not detract one iota from our determination, strength and ability to act against our enemies on all fronts, wherever and whenever necessary.”
No one disputes that IDF intelligence failed to detect the Hamas plans to attack on Oct. 7, apparently ignoring warnings from the lower ranks, including army lookouts stationed along the Gaza border, many of whom were killed on the frontlines during the attack.
Military Intelligence Directorate head Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva announced his resignation over his failure in April.
However, Netanyahu has attempted to distance himself from that failure. It’s unclear if his efforts are succeeding with polls showing contradictory results.
A Channel 14 poll published on May 16 shows Netanyahu’s Likud Party strengthening with 26 mandates, while a Channel 13 poll just over a week earlier had the Likud weakening with 19 mandates. The Likud has 32 seats in the current Knesset.
It’s also unknown what effect an aggressive, well-funded ad campaign tying Netanyahu to the Oct. 7 failure has had on public opinion. The campaign, begun in late January, carries the slogan, “You’re the leader. You’re guilty.”
In late October, Netanyahu was forced to apologize following his tweet in which he claimed that “at no point” had he been given a warning regarding the Hamas terror group’s “intention to start a war.”
After a public backlash, Netanyahu said in a follow-up tweet, “I was wrong. Things I said following the press conference should not have been said and I apologize for that.”
{Matzav.com}
If, I repeat, if, again, I repeat, IF the real actual truth is that Netanyahu had absolutely no knowledge of the impending Simchas Torah – October 7 Chamas attack before it happened, and he still did not have any knowledge of it when it was happening, and he was was never informed about it until very many hours AFTER it had already happened, IF that is the truth, well, then THAT is the truth!! Then Netanyahu is not to blame; he is not the guy we have to be mad at.
Obviously though, somewhere in the Israel government, there certainly WERE people who DID KNOW of the attack (and allowed it to happen) whom ARE to blame and whom we DO need to be mad at. Again, we need to know who they are.
He is a liar and a traitor!!!!
How do you bring about such a massacre? Remove the PM. Indeed, as is well proven, and noticeable on the photo here, Netanyahu was replaced. Apparently, replaced with a heartless fella. He was replaced before 2022.
He didn’t receive advance warning. He was part of the planning.
100% true but it wasn’t Netanyahu. It was someone hiding under the Bibi facemask. The photo attached here is quite obvious that Netanyahu is gone.
We need to realize the extremely grave deadly seriousness of this. Because some element of people in the Israel government — whoever they are — purposely allowed this attack to happen, this has been the result:
Already on Simchas Torah – October 7 itself, over 1,200 people were cruelly slashed and raped and killed and another 253 people were abusively abducted. Subsequently since Simchas Torah – October 7 itself, many, many hundreds more Israel soldiers & commanders have been killed in the combat of the resulting war, and very many of the abductees have also been killed. 128 abductees are still incarcerated, with still no promise of getting out.
In the massive combat of this resulting war, vast numbers of prominent people — very many of whom were previously not even THINKING about Israel and very many more of whom were previously even STRONGLY SUPPORTIVE of Israel — have now been screaming that Israel is purposely committing outright genocide of the Palestinian people and purposely cutting off all food to the Palestinian people.
Even though these accusations are obviously gigantic exaggerations and outright lies, THIS is what often happens in almost ANY war!! Yes, each side says the other one is doing super terrible things.
The result of all these terrible allegations has been a frighteningly dangerous rise in acts against us of outright Sinas Yisroel, including that, throughout the country, Jewish students are scared to even enter their college’s campuses, Rachmana Litzlan!!
DO WE REALIZE THE EXTREMELY GRAVE DEADLY SERIOUSNESS OF THIS????? DOES MR. NETANYAHU REALIZE THE EXTREMELY GRAVE DEADLY SERIOUSNESS OF THIS????? OF THE BLOOD OF OVER 2,000 ISRAEL PEOPLE????? OF THE SEVERELY GRAVE DANGER COUNTLESS JEWS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD ARE NOW IN, RACHMANA LITZLAN?????
If Mr. Netanyahu is not realizing the seriousness of this (of Israel’s government allowing the Simchas Torah – October 7 attack to occur) to fully facilitate a fully proper completely independent investigation of it, that should be an indication that he does not think it was such a really terrible thing that members of his own government allowed the attack to occur. And, if he does not think it was a terrible thing what they did, then maybe that is an indication that — like some of the remarks here forcefully state — he is lying!! And the real truth is that he was FULLY IN with his government members in allowing and maybe even orchestrating the horrific attack to occur.
Again though, whoever are the Israel government members who committed this most horrific treason to the people of Israel — and to all of Am Yisroel — they must be discovered and brought to proper justice, which means complete removal from their positions and appropriate punishment for their outright crimes.
When I heard about the Burning Man festival on Shmini Atzeres I shuddered at the ramifications. Plegesh b’Givon. All … breaks loose.