Netanyahu’s office admits intelligence officer didn’t pass on warning hours before October 7 attack

The Israeli Prime Minister’s intelligence officer received an Israel Defence Forces memo detailing suspicious Hamas activity three hours before the terror group’s October 7 onslaught and didn’t pass it on, Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed on Saturday.

The prime minister’s office argued that this was justified due to the document’s non-urgent framing, reported the Times of Israel.

The admission followed a Channel 12 report that claimed the IDF had drafted a document laying out multiple concerning signs of Hamas activity in Gaza the night before Hamas’s attack and sent it out to the intelligence officers of seven Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant.

The report said that Gallant’s office was unable to reach his intelligence officer, who, therefore, did not receive the document at that time.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s intelligence officer and the other five all received the document. Despite this, the prime minister’s officer refrained from passing the information up the chain, claimed Channel 12.

But the IDF did not investigate the reason behind the material not being passed on because its investigation into the October 7 failures —published past week — did not examine decisions made by politicians.

“I didn’t check what went on there [in the chain of command in the Prime Minister’s Office] because I was very wary of probing the political echelon,” said Moshe Schneid, the IDF officer who oversaw the IDF’s intelligence investigation. “I met the prime minister’s intelligence officer several times in the street and I was careful not even to ask him about it.”

Channel 12 also quoted outgoing IDF chief Herzi Halevi, admitting that the IDF did not publicise the fact that the Prime Minister’s Office was alerted to Hamas’s concerning activity three hours ahead of the massacre, “even though this could have helped us in the face of the bad things that are being said about us. We are very responsible and discreet. It’s a shame this is not reciprocated.”

“If the prime minister’s intelligence officer was a person of integrity, he should already have told Netanyahu that he knew about Hamas preparations just before the attack and did not update Netanyahu. The officer]did not do this,” Halevi said.

The Israeli prime minister has consistently asserted that he received no specific advance warning ahead of the terror group’s October 7 attack.

Responding to Channel 12’s findings, Netanyahu’s office accused Halevi of trying to shirk responsibility for the failures in the wake of the massacre.

“It is very unfortunate that the chief of staff chooses to publicly attack a moral and trustworthy officer in the IDF,” said the Prime Minister’s Office in a statement, “while attempting to shift the responsibility for the October 7 lapse onto his subordinates.”

According to the premier’s office, Netanyahu’s intelligence officer received the message as well as a report that the terror group was operating as usual and that the IDF Southern Command would convene a discussion in the morning.

The officer forwarded the message to Netanyahu’s military secretary Avi Gil but chose not to wake him up as the message did not indicate immediate urgency, reported the Times of Israel.

The intelligence officer in question was not interviewed as part of the IDF investigations and was not permitted to attend the presentation of the findings, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has full confidence in the military secretariat of his office,” it said

According to the Israeli military’s extensive investigation into October 7 —outlining “one of the greatest failures in IDF history” — it picked up on several signs of unusual Hamas activity, but refused to believe this indicated a planned massacre, following a yearslong ruse that convinced the security establishment that the terror group wasn’t interested in war.

Halevi, the army’s chief of staff, will step down in the next few days.