Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) speaks with Cabinet Secretary Tzachi Braverman (right) during a weekly cabinet meeting in the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem on April 30, 2023. (Abir Sultan/Pool/AFP)
The Shin Bet security agency reportedly tried to get in touch with Tzachi Braverman, who serves as chief of staff to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at 5.am. on October 7, 2023, less than two hours before the start of Hamas’s deadly onslaught on southern Israeli communities.
Channel 13 reports that the Shin Bet was trying to reach Braverman regarding unusual activity in Gaza, including indications of Israeli SIM cards activated by Hamas forces.
Earlier today, Ynet reported that senior officials in the Prime Minister’s Office tried to make changes to minutes from security meetings regarding warnings received by PMO officials about the SIM card activity.
The Hamas onslaught began at 6:29 a.m. that day, when some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel under the cover of a deluge of thousands of rockets, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
Palestinian terrorists kidnap an Israeli civilian, center, from Kibbutz Nir Oz into the Gaza Strip, on October 7, 2023. (Hatem Ali/ AP)
The allegation that senior PMO officials tried to blackmail an IDF officer in Netanyahu’s office to get him to change records of meetings is one of several scandals that has been swirling in recent weeks.
Netanyahu has insisted that he was only told about the SIMs after the attack began, and his office flatly denies the Ynet report, calling it “another complete fabrication.”
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