Israel PM Netanyahu says security officials deliberately kept him from waking on Oct 7
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused security officials of intentionally withholding information on the morning of the October 7 Hamas attacks. He claims that if he had been alerted, he could have mobilized the military to contain the situation.
Why it matters
The accusations intensify political instability in Israel and highlight deep divisions between the government and security establishment regarding accountability for the October 7 security failure.
JERUSALEM, Sept 2 — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused security officials on Tuesday of intentionally failing to wake him on the morning of Hamas’s October 7 attacks, a day after his wife claimed an opposition figure knew of the onslaught in advance.
Netanyahu is heading into close-fought elections later this year, and has come in for sustained criticism in the national debate over who is responsible for the failures that led to the October 7, 2023 security fiasco.
The prime minister has alleged in the past that security officials refrained from waking him that morning, insisting that the attack would have been contained if he had stepped in earlier, but only in recent days has he begun to claim that the move was intentional.
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