Reported transcript quotes Netanyahu’s chief of staff trying in vain to persuade stenographer to falsify PM’s Oct. 7 phone records

Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, tried to persuade a stenographer to falsify the prime minister’s phone records from the morning of October 7, 2023, and was told twice that doing so was illegal, according to a transcript of a conversation reported by Channel 12.

Braverman stands accused of tampering with the phone records in January 2024, three months after the Hamas-led invasion and massacre. The prime minister’s ex-military secretary, Avi Gil, said in a pair of interviews earlier this week that Braverman sought to doctor the time when Netanyahu first spoke with Gil on his secure line, changing it from the actual time of 6:40 a.m. to 6:29 a.m., the moment the attack started.

According to the transcript, Braverman spoke with a secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office in January 2024 and urged her to change the timestamp, which she refused to do.

“Wow, how nice, look at how sharp he is,” Braverman said of Netanyahu while reading the transcript of the premier’s 6:40 a.m. phone call, according to Channel 12. “This was at 6:29, not 6:40. Change the time.”

“I’m not allowed to. Look, it’s computerized. I can’t touch it,” she reportedly replied.

Braverman then falsely said he was on the call and again instructed her to change the timestamp, according to the network, leading her to reply, “Tzachi, I’m prohibited from changing it.”

Braverman then reportedly changed the timestamp by hand.

Gil has stated that he woke Netanyahu up via a Whatsapp call at 6:29, as Hamas began its attack, and told the prime minister to get to a secure line. He called Netanyahu a second time, at 6:40 on the secure line, to give the prime minister the information he had gathered about the attack, and told him, “We are at war.”

In response to the report, Braverman’s representative tells the network that Braverman never claimed to have been on a 6:29 call, and says Gil neglected to tell investigators that Gil and Braverman spoke at 6:33, and that Gil told Braverman in the 6:33 call about Gil’s 6:29 call with Netanyahu.

Police are said to have enough evidence to indict Braverman for tampering with phone records, but he claims he did so because he thought the timestamp was an error. That claim may be hard to disprove, making an indictment unlikely.

Braverman is also facing separate charges in connection with a classified document leak.