National Security Council denies it received warnings in hours before Oct. 7 attack
NSC rejects newspaper report, citing IDF probe, that the Prime Minister’s Office — though not Netanyahu himself — was continuously informed of worrying intelligence from Gaza
The National Security Council on Wednesday denied a report that the IDF investigation into the hours leading up to the Hamas invasion on October 7, 2023 found that the council received alerts on suspicious Hamas activities that night.
“Contrary to Ronen Bergman’s false publication in Yedioth Ahronoth,” it said in a statement, “no warning was given to the NSC in the early morning of October 7.”
According to the report published Tuesday, by Yedioth Ahronoth journalist Bergman, a series of warnings were transmitted throughout the night to the National Security Council’s situation room, which operates at all hours and falls under the auspices of the Prime Minister’s Office.
The report does not claim that Netanyahu was informed directly about the warnings any earlier than he has claimed — but it does assert that the National Security Council, which falls under his supervision, was informed.
The report detailed warnings that were reportedly given to the prime minister’s intelligence officer, a Colonel “Shin” — identified only by his Hebrew initial — whom the report identified as “one of the people most respected by Netanyahu.”
The officer was said to have received the warnings, from the command center of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate, via encrypted messages on his phone, and to have confirmed that he’d read them.
Among the information transmitted, Ynet reported, was not just, as was previously reported, that Hamas operatives had inserted Israeli SIM cards into their phones, in advance of the invasion, but also that Hamas’s military leadership had entered protected spaces — a further warning that an attack might be imminent.
At about 3 a.m., the report said, intelligence officers updated the NSC situation room about the worrying signs from Gaza, including an unspecified “meaningful indication.”
It said that at 3:55 a.m., the NSC received another update that Hamas seemed to be moving into emergency mode.
Then, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi held a situational assessment at 4:00 a.m., the main findings of which were relayed to the Prime Minister’s Office.
According to the report, Colonel Shin told military officials he had tried to contact figures in the Prime Minister’s Office but failed to reach them. The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit declined to comment on this claim.
The report and the denials come as the PMO is being investigated over alleged attempts to falsify the records of conversations in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office ahead of the Hamas attack, including blackmailing the aforementioned intelligence officer to coerce him to change the minutes of phone calls.
It also comes after persistent refusals by the prime minister to allow for a state commission of inquiry into the October 7 attack, entertaining other proposals or insisting that a thorough accounting can only be done after the war.
The Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement responding to the report, separate from the NSC comment.
“The first telephone call received by the prime minister regarding the October 7 Hamas attack was received at 6:29 a.m., from his military secretary, when the attack broke out. The prime minister did not receive any information before that,” it said.
“Had Prime Minister Netanyahu received information prior to that, it is doubtful whether the attack would have played out the way it did,” the statement continued.
