‘1,000 alarm clocks’: Oct. 7 families say government’s failures spanned 15 years

Relatives of victims of Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, unveiling a dossier on the government’s failures in the years leading up to the attack, argue that the massacre resulted from a long-term Israeli policy of strengthening Hamas.

They also lament that no one has formally been held responsible for allowing the onslaught. Speakers at a press conference on the dossier blame Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to prevent it.

“Three years later, no one has been held accountable for their responsibility for the most horrifying military, security and political failure in our history,” says Noam Peri, whose father, Chaim Peri, was abducted alive from Kibbutz Nir Oz and later murdered in Hamas captivity. “A commission of inquiry has not even been established.”

“As the evidence accumulates and ‘Case 7/10’ becomes clearer – go in and see for yourselves – the picture, sadly, is unmistakable,” she says. “Netanyahu and his governments genuinely preferred Hamas rule. That was their policy for more than a decade.”

Gil Dickmann, whose cousin Carmel Gat was abducted from Kibbutz Be’eri and murdered in captivity in Gaza, rejects Netanyahu’s recent remarks blaming security officials for failing to wake him before the attack.

“Netanyahu says he was not woken on October 7. But here, in ‘Case 7/10’ there are 1,000 alarm clocks,” Dickmann says. He accuses Netanyahu’s camp of “trying to reduce a failure that lasted a decade and a half to a single three-hour incident.”

“We will not allow you to bury the October 7 failure as you erased the 46 hostages who were murdered in captivity,” he adds. “We will not allow you to lie and claim that you brought everyone home.”

Michel Ilouz, whose son Guy was abducted to Gaza and murdered in captivity, says the government in 2018 asked Qatar to transfer money to Hamas, a terror organization with the stated goal of destroying Israel.

“Did you take into account that this would end with nearly 2,000 graves? That the country’s citizens would be slaughtered here?” he asks.

Naomi Or Ofek, a 16-year-old relative of victims Dror and Yonat Or and their children, surviving hostages Liam, Noam and Alma Or, argues that Israel’s leaders are not “entitled to the benefit of the doubt.”

She says, “Those responsible for the failure are clear, and they are evading responsibility.”