Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly addressed the question of why senior security officials did not wake him during the Hamas invasion on October 7, 2023, according to The Zioneer.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly addressed the question of why senior security officials did not wake him during the October 7 Hamas invasion, in remarks that emerged Monday evening (21:08 Jerusalem). The statement comes hours after he told Mossad Director Roman Gofman at the agency's headquarters that if he had been woken, 'everything would have looked different' (The Zioneer, 20:32 Jerusalem).
Tonight's meeting with Gofman was the first time Netanyahu confirmed he was not woken. The new public statement — offered without a specified venue — provides a more direct explanation for the security brass's decision. Prior to tonight, the fullest account came from an interview with journalist Sharon Gal in which Netanyahu said security officials feared a 'miscalculation' and that he would have ordered an attack (The Zioneer, Wed Jul 8, 18:40 Jerusalem).
The developments intensify the scrutiny of command decisions on October 7, 2023. In earlier remarks, Netanyahu said the public should wait for security cabinet protocols to learn the truth (The Zioneer, Mon 01:06), and stated in June that the attack made him clarify that Israel is 'a state with an army, not the opposite' (The Zioneer, Tue Jun 30, 22:41 Jerusalem).
It remains unclear why the security leadership chose not to alert the prime minister during the early hours of the invasion. No official explanation from the IDF or intelligence chiefs has been released.
2 developments
Source and signal
- Open-source intake