Reports: PM sought gestures to Gazans to keep calm weeks before Oct. 7; Shin Bet head claims he ordered PM woken up hours before

New reports purport to reveal details about the security and intelligence assessments during the time immediately preceding the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

Channels 13 and 12 air what they say are minutes from high-level discussions held weeks before the onslaught, in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed the importance of keeping the quiet throughout the Jewish holiday period — at the end of which the mass invasion happened — and suggested a package of goodwill gestures to appease the Palestinian terror group.

In a September 27 discussion with the country’s top security officials, Netanyahu summarized that “we are working to limit and reduce the escalation, while employing limited and controlled force,” according to Channel 13.

Addressing occasional Hamas-led riots near the border, the premier reportedly said Israel should “start and increase the use of steps in the humanitarian relief realm, particularly on [the number of Gazan] laborers [entering Israel], as an additional tool beyond the offensive tools.”

The quotes appear to contradict Netanyahu’s depiction of events in a document he published containing his response to the state comptroller, in which he published minutes from classified discussions held over the years. The premier’s selected quotes presented himself as having sought tough action on Hamas, with security chiefs thwarting this.

Meanwhile, Channel 13 publishes what it says is part of former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar’s answers to the state comptroller’s probe, which was ordered halted last year by the High Court of Justice.

Bar, who was fired over his failure to prevent the attack, reportedly told the ombudsman that in the early-morning hours of October 7 — ahead of the start of the attack at 6:29 a.m. — the Shin Bet issued an alert regarding Hamas movements in the Strip.

Bar is said to have claimed he rushed from his home to the agency’s headquarters, and at 5:15 a.m. gave an explicit order to wake up Netanyahu and update him. He again ordered this at 6 a.m.

Netanyahu has said nobody woke him up before the attack, and yesterday accused Bar of having appointed himself “de facto prime minister,” led a “rebellion” against him, and led a “cover-up campaign” by falsifying the intelligence agency’s probe into October 7.

According to Channel 13, a senior defense official is claiming that Netanyahu is “declaring open season on Bar to get revenge for the Qatargate investigation.”