Days before Oct 7, PM ordered security forces to ‘minimize escalation’ in Gaza – report

A day after Egypt’s intelligence chief flew into Ben Gurion Airport to reportedly warn that Hamas was mobilizing in Gaza and advise further Israeli concessions to the Gaza-ruling terror group to avoid a conflict, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered that Israel avoid measures that could lead to a military escalation, according to a report on Saturday.

Channel 13 news, following up on a report in The Atlantic, cited the minutes from a September 27 meeting with security officials, in which “the prime minister determined that [Israel] must act to contain and minimize the escalation, while using intelligence and controlled force.”

He also reportedly called “to sharpen” the warnings against the launching of arson balloons from Gaza into Israel and to ramp up humanitarian benefits, the latter apparently leading to Israel’s reopening a day later of the crossing for Palestinians laborers employed in the country as part of an Egyptian-brokered deal for Hamas to cease border riots.

The TV network also cited an October 1 document from another security meeting that said Israel was poised to reach a deal with Saudi Arabia and should therefore “maintain a measured level of security activity,” echoing reporting from The New York Times on Friday that Netanyahu didn’t want to authorize strikes in Gaza out of concern they could harm normalization efforts with Riyadh.

Such an agreement would have required Israel to make significant concessions toward Palestinian statehood, which Netanyahu and his hard-right government oppose. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said the sides were moving closer, less than a month before the Hamas attack.

Internal Hamas documents obtained by Israel during the Gaza war showed that the terror group’s attack was partially motivated by a desire to thwart Saudi rapprochement with the Jewish state.

The report said that one of the documents included a line about the need “to advance the operational preparedness for the targeted killings that were recommended of Hamas leaders,” though it didn’t not specify whether it was from the meetings of September 27 or October 1, or say who had made that recommendation.

Yashar party chairman Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff and Netanyahu’s primary rival for the premiership in the upcoming election, said the report was “additional proof why Netanyahu is afraid to establish a state commission of inquiry and why he refuses my demand to open the full protocols.”

“He knows that if they are revealed, his lies will be exposed,” he wrote on X.

Eisenkot said that Netanyahu “behaved with arrogance and irresponsibility” when presented with warnings, and that he was “afraid of the truth — to the point of submitting a false affidavit.”

Eisenkot was referring to the prime minister’s answers to the state comptroller as part of the ombudsman’s investigation into the October 7, 2023, massacre, in which he pinned the failure to prevent the onslaught on political rivals and security chiefs while presenting himself in a positive light and deflecting his responsibility for the attack.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s office on Saturday pushed back on the report in The Atlantic, which said that Egypt’s intelligence chief Abbas Kamel came to Israel ahead of the Hamas invasion to warn Israeli officials that the Gaza-based terror group could escalate drastically if they were not granted economic concessions.

“This is a false claim,” said the PMO, without specifying what element in the report it was disputing. “It was already denied at the time, and it is now being recycled in an attempt to mislead the Israeli public.”

“On October 11, 2023, Egypt officially denied that it warned Israel of the October 7 assault,” Netanyahu’s office further added. However, at the time, Egyptian media with close ties to the country’s intelligence services quoted unnamed senior security sources denying Israeli press reports that such a warning had been issued. There was no formal government denial.

Reports on the Egyptian intelligence chief’s warning came on top of reports of a call Netanyahu had received from UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed, who warned the prime minister of plans for an imminent attack, days before the Hamas invasion and massacre. Netanyahu has denied that such a call took place, but multiple outlets, including The Times of Israel, have confirmed that it did.

Netanyahu reportedly did not inform security chiefs about that warning during a meeting on October 1, 2023, with security chiefs on the situation in Gaza, instead advocating for calm in the Strip.

Agencies contributed to this report.