Downplaying Qatari aide he facilitated, PM says Hamas used cheap weaponry on Oct. 7

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responds to media criticism over remarks he made last night regarding elections and the role of Qatar in financing the October 7 massacre in a Hebrew-language video posted on his X account.

He denies that he neglected to confirm during a Jerusalem press conference yesterday that elections will be held on time next year, saying, “I hope they will be held on time – I’m doing everything so that they do not happen ahead of time.”

“But I can tell you one thing — [elections] won’t happen after the deadline. It won’t happen. Do you know why? Because we are democrats. We believe that the public has the right to choose,” he says, contrasting this with political opponents and others who, in his words, believe “so what if you were elected — we will decide,” and who try to impose “all sorts of things contrary to the existing law.” He cites his legal disputes with the Attorney General over his authority to appoint the Shin Bet chief and the Civil Service Commissioner as examples.

Netanyahu also clarifies statements that seemed to downplay the lethal capabilities of Hamas during the October 7, 2023, attack.

Denying that money transferred by Qatar to Hamas-ruled Gaza at his request enabled the terror group’s unprecedented onslaught, Netanyahu said yesterday that invading Hamas members “attacked us in flip-flops and with AK-47s and pickup trucks, which cost scraps.”

He now clarifies that he “asked: what weapons did they even use? What did they use that required money? Pickup trucks. Kalashnikovs. RPGs. That doesn’t cost anything. And really, it wasn’t some huge rocket stockpile. You know what they do — they take metal barrels, put explosives inside, and that’s it. A small unit can do it. It doesn’t cost money,” he says.

“The Qatari financial aid was a small part of a much larger stream of funding that reached Hamas. It came from the United Nations, from international agencies, from European countries, from Iran — it came from everywhere. The Qatari money was just a small part of it,” he says.

“That aid was intended for 100,000 Gazans living below the poverty line. It was meant to deal with sewage, to prevent disease… to provide minimal electricity, etc. That’s what it was. So no, that money didn’t really build weapons or anything like that,” he continues.

“So this wasn’t a financial issue, and it wasn’t about the Qatari money. It was a matter of failures, and we still need to ask what happened there. Why? Why didn’t [the IDF] deploy the standby squads? Why didn’t they activate the Air Force in time? Why didn’t they inform the Prime Minister — me? Who made that call?” says Netanyahu.

“There are many questions — and those are the ones that must truly be investigated. And I want to investigate them. Everything. Let them ask everything — about Qatar, about whatever they want. Everything. And there are answers,” he says, referring to the need to establish a commission of inquiry into the attack.

The government has not formed any commission of inquiry into the events surrounding October 7 for 19 months, and opposes a state commission of inquiry, which successive polls show is the preferred option for most Israelis.

Netanyahu adds that the questions about the IDF’s directives are the most pressing, “these are the most important questions: How did this disaster happen? And we will find out.”