Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was facing mounting pressure due to his push for a sweeping judicial overhaul in Israel, was told repeatedly that a major attack was looming but brushed off the warnings for the months before the 7 October Hamas attack.

The New York Times reported that Israel’s inquiry into the attack that resulted in 1,400 people killed and hundreds kidnapped is in its infancy, but it is clear that security officials warned Netanyahu that domestic strife was becoming a security vulnerability. 

Netanyahu took the position that these warnings were politically motivated.

The paper, citing Israeli officials, reported that Netanyahu even refused to meet with a senior general in July. The official wanted to warn the leader who billed himself as “mister security,” about the soaring threat level.

TRENDPOST: The Trends Journal reported extensively on how Netanyahu’s political career was hanging in the balance before the 7 Hamas attack. He faced corruption charges that could bring a prison sentence, he faced historic weekly protests against the judicial overhaul that some analysts said could explode into a civil war, and his relationship with Washington was souring because of his aggressive, pro-settler stance in the West Bank. (See “NETANYAHU’S GOVERNMENT CONTINUES ITS WAR ON PALESTINIANS” 12 Sep 2023, “DUH-MOCK-RACY: ISRAEL HOLDING OVER 1,200 DETAINEES—MAINLY PALESTINIANS—WHO HAVE NOT BEEN CHARGED” 8 Aug 2023, “NETANYAHU’S HARDLINE COALITION TAKES HOLD AMID SURGE IN VIOLENCE AGAINST PALESTINIANS” 5 Jul 2023, “UN: OK FOR ISRAEL TO KILL PALESTINIAN CHILDREN, BUT SHAMES RUSSIA FOR KILLING CHILDREN IN UKRAINE” 27 Jun 2023 and “NETANYAHU’S GOVERNMENT TO STEAL MORE PALESTINIAN LAND” 20 Jun 2023.)

Netanyahu’s office was forced to deny a report on Channel 13 news that the prime minister floated the idea that the reservists’ strike during his judicial reforms push could have provided Hamas with an opening. 

Benny Gantz, a Netanyahu rival, seized on Israeli reports about Netanyahu tying the attack to the protests and posted on X: “Evading responsibility and mudslinging during war deals harm to the country. The prime minister must unequivocally retract his statement.”

Netanyahu’s office said: “Contrary to what was published, the prime minister did not in any way say that the (reservists’) refusal was what led Hamas to attack Israel.”

The question remains how it was possible that the Israelis could possibly have been taken by surprise and the report adds weight to the theory that Netanyahu knew. 

Phil Giraldi wrote last month:

Am I the only one who read about a speech given by Netanyahu or someone in his cabinet about a week ago in which he/they in passing referred to a “developing security situation” which rather suggests (to me) that they might have known about developments in Gaza and chose to let it happen so they can wipe Gaza off the map in retaliation and, possibly relying on the U.S. pledge to have Israel’s “back,” then implicating Iran and attacking that country. I cannot find a link to it, but have a fairly strong recollection of what I read as I thought at the time it would serve as a pretext for another massacre of Palestinians.

Ben Bartee, a Bangkok-based American journalist, posted on his Substack page that questioned the Western narrative that the attack on Israel was some kind of a massive intelligence failure.

He noted that Israel was divided over Netanyahu’s hardline government and judicial overhaul, which brought the country to the brink of civil war. He wrote that it is his belief that Mossad either knew the attack was looming or “actively facilitated the attack” so Israelis “will rally around the flag for some patriotic Palestinian ass-kicking and their Prime Minister’s imminently obvious corruption will be, at least temporarily, forgotten, if not forgiven.”

The Times’s report noted that in July, top Israeli generals arrived at the Knesset to warn Netanyahu’s fragile coalition government that domestic turmoil was “emboldening Israel’s enemies.” The report noted that one general had documents that warned these officials that leaders from Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were under the impression that it was time to strike. 

Just two members of the Knesset were on hand during the presentation.

The Times noted that one of the generals, Aharon Haliva, told the public on 11 September that the country needs to be prepared for a “multi-arena and extensive military conflict.”

Netanyahu’s team accused the general of creating an unnecessary state of panic.

Just three days before the attack, Egypt warned Israel of a cross-border raid, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said. 

“We know that Egypt had warned the Israelis three days prior that an event like this could happen,” McCaul told reporters as outlined by The Hill.

Netanyahu called the report “false,” but his critics say the attack put these judicial reforms in the rearview mirror and gave the IDF carte blanche to bomb Gaza into dust. 

The Times of Israel, citing eyewitness accounts, reported last week that IDF surveillance soldiers warned for at least three months before the attack about signs that something unusual was happening in Gaza.

According to the accounts of the soldiers, no action was taken by those who received the reports.