AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Sami Peretz, a Haaretz political analyst, wrote in a report that Netanyahu is trying to reduce the greatest security failure in Israel's history to the question of whether he was informed in time about the Hamas attack on the morning of October 7, a narrative that, according to the author, causes Netanyahu's role in the policy of strengthening Hamas and weakening the Palestinian Authority to be overlooked.
Peretz, citing the statements and reports of former Israeli officials, claimed that Netanyahu had received multiple warnings in the years before October 7 regarding the threats posed by Hamas. Among these, Avigdor Lieberman, the then-Minister of War, called for action against Hamas, and in 2019, the then-head of the Shin Bet warned about the transfer of part of Qatar's financial aid to Hamas's military wing, but according to Haaretz, Netanyahu opposed stopping this process.
The analyst also referred to multiple warnings from security agencies in 2023 and wrote that the Israeli army and intelligence agencies had warned about the increasing risk of war and the erosion of deterrence.
Gadi Eizenkot, the former Chief of Staff of the army, had also warned about the weakening of the military and its consequences, and Yair Lapid, the former Prime Minister, had reported, just two weeks before the October 7 attack, that Israel was approaching a multi-front confrontation.
Peretz concluded by writing that Netanyahu went into shock and fear after the October 7 attack, but in his view, the only issue that truly prompted the Israeli Prime Minister to an immediate reaction was Lapid's proposal to form an emergency government without the presence of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
The author concludes that what Netanyahu has always been sensitive to is not security warnings, but his own personal political fate.
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