Warnings about weak deterrence, impending war were presented to PM before Oct. 7, says his former top military aide

Avi Gil, the retired general who served as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military secretary before and after October 7, 2023, says there were repeated warnings from top security officials about an impending war in the weeks and months before the invasion and massacre, though none about the specific scenario that unfolded three years ago.

“For weeks, documents were submitted,” he tells Channel 12. “The security establishment described a reality in which our enemies identify the fissure [in society], identify weakening, and damage to our deterrence.”

The warnings took place over a bitter public fight around proposed reforms to Israel’s judicial system.

“Was there a specific, focused warning about a scenario like an attack like this from Gaza? The answer is unequivocally no,” he says.

“Did we start to recognize in the security establishment damage to our deterrence, our enemies looking differently at Israel? The answer is unequivocally yes,” says Gil. “And it was presented at all echelons.”

He says he personally delivered a warning to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about a possible impending war from Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar in July 2023, in which Bar formally stated that he was “conveying a warning of war,” as the coalition pushed through the first major piece of legislation in Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul package.

“I went to the prime minister in the hospital,” he says, referring to a weekend in July when the premier was hospitalized for dehydration, “in order to give him three things – the weekend’s intelligence report, a personal letter from the IDF chief of staff that he asked be delivered to him on the eve of the legislation, and a classified phone call with the Shin Bet director that I connected.”

He refuses to reveal the content of the letter or the call.

“The former Shin Bet director spoke accurately,” he says when asked if Bar’s subsequent account about warning Netanyahu that war was coming was correct.

He says the prime minister also heard warnings about an impending war from his security chiefs. “There were many discussions. Many.”

“Everything that the security establishment knew was said [to Netanyahu],” Gil says.