Israel’s opposition leader, former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, told a civilian commission of inquiry on Thursday that his successor, Benjamin Netanyahu, failed to react to a warning by the Defense Ministry last summer of a possible attack by Palestinian militants, thus facilitating the October 7 attack by the Islamist group Hamas.
In his statement, Lapid claims that Netanyahu and his government focused all their attention on the parliamentary approval of their judicial reform – which sought to reduce the independence of the judiciary – despite the historic protest movement that this provoked, and ignored warnings about the security threat.
The opposition leader claims that in July 2023 he received a report from Ronen Bar, head of the internal intelligence service, Shin Bet, which gave “unprecedented warnings” about “the security consequences” brought about by the polarization caused by the reform.
Lapid recalls asking Bar if Netanyahu and his cabinet ministers were aware, “and the answer was, ‘Of course they are.'”
On August 21, 2023, Netanyahu’s military secretary, General Avi Gil, gave the prime minister and Lapid a security briefing in which he warned that Israel’s enemies – Iran and its allied militias in the region – had identified “weaknesses” on the Israeli side, including “an internal split, tensions, a loss of readiness in the military and an emerging crisis with the United States,” Israel’s main partner and arms supplier.
Lapid said Gil’s warning was dramatic, but that the Israeli president “seemed bored and indifferent to the issue, and made no comments on it.”
Lapid also said he saw classified intelligence material provided to parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that indicated an “unequivocal message: Israeli deterrence (against its enemies) had dramatically eroded.”
“The material showed that Israel was in the highest level of danger,” stressed the opposition leader of the Yesh Atid party, who on September 20, 2023 warned at a press conference about the imminent risk of “a confrontation (war) on multiple fronts.Said
Netanyahu’s Likud party reacted to these statements by saying that Lapid is “lying.”
“Netanyahu was not warned about the war in Gaza, not even a month before and not even an hour before October 7. Quite the opposite, and the protocols prove it,” said a statement from Likud, which considers Lapid “to be the last one who can preach morality in security matters.”
The opposition leader said Israeli President Isaac Herzog also received the security warnings, and blamed the defense elite for failing to act.
“Instead of acting, [el establishment de Defensa] “awaited instructions from the political leadership,” Lapid said.
“There is no excuse for this,” he said, but the responsibility of the Israel Defense Forces “does not negate the responsibility of the political leadership,” he said, adding that “the catastrophe was avoidable.”
In October, Netanyahu said that “all security officials, including the head of military intelligence and the head of the Shin Bet, assessed that Hamas had been deterred. This assessment was presented (…) until the outbreak of the war.”
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Hamas sparked the war by launching a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, which included the launching of some 3,000 rockets and the infiltration of some 1,000 militants who massacred 1,200 people and kidnapped another 251.
Netanyahu, who has not publicly claimed responsibility for the attack, has refused to establish a state commission of inquiry, despite demands from the defense minister, the attorney general and civil society.
Meanwhile, a parliamentary committee oversees internal military investigations.