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Sunday, May 10, 2026
Culture Minister Zohar claims Hamas ‘concocted’ October 7 attack during Bennett-Lapid government
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Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar says the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack was “concocted” during the term of the short-lived government led by former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, which left office in late 2022.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in power in the months before the invasion and massacre, as well as when it occurred, and has led Israel nearly uninterrupted since 2009. Zohar, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud Party, acknowledged in a radio interview that the attack “happened on our watch.”
“But it was concocted during the previous watch of Bennett and Lapid as prime ministers,” he adds. He claims that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar planned the attack under the previous government “the moment he saw [their] weakness.”
In response to Zohar’s comments, Lapid says in a post on X: “Miki, you were a minister in the government on October 7, Netanyahu was prime minister on October 7, and Likud, [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich and [far-right coalition party] Otzma Yehudit held all the security portfolios on October 7.”
He adds, “1,200 people were murdered on your watch. Hundreds were abducted on your watch… You ignored all our warnings and alerts, strengthened Hamas as a matter of policy, and brought upon us the greatest disaster to befall the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”
Lapid and Bennett recently formed a joint party called Together that aims to unseat the government in elections set to take place in late October.
On X, Bennett writes, “The outgoing government has begun another campaign to evade responsibility for the blood of those murdered on October 7.”
A Hamas memo from 2022, during the 18 months when the Bennett-Lapid government was in power, reportedly detailed plans for the massacre. But as early as 2018, Netanyahu was reportedly warned several times about Hamas’s plans to invade Israel. He has never acknowledged direct responsibility for the failures surrounding October 7 and has instead attempted to place the blame on others, including the security establishment.
The Times of Israel Community.