‘Treason’: Opposition demands criminal probe of PM, after ex-military aide’s Oct.7 revelations

Opposition leaders demanded a criminal investigation into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after a Thursday interview in which the premier’s former military secretary Avi Gil said the Prime Minister’s Office tampered with records related to the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

According to Gil, Netanyahu’s chief of staff Tzachi Braverman sought to have a 6:40 a.m. call between him and the premier recorded as having been placed at 6:29 a.m., the minute the attack started. Additionally, Netanyahu’s ex-secretary told Channel 12 that there were times when the prime minister opted to preserve his government rather than agree to a deal that would have secured the release of hostages, some of whom later died in captivity.

Netanyahu denied the allegations, and claimed that Gil knew about the impending onslaught but “chose not to wake the prime minister up in time,” echoing his previous unsupported assertions that security chiefs deliberately declined to alert him for fear of his hawkish response. Gil’s remarks, Netanyahu alleged, were “an attempt to obscure the simple and painful truth about his failure.”

In an overnight post to X, Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot – responding to both the Channel 12 interview and a separate report by the Ynet news site – shared a letter his legal team had written to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, accusing the premier of being dishonest in a December 2025 report to the state comptroller.

Matanyahu Englman, whose term ended earlier this year, had launched his own investigation into the failures surrounding October 7, in the absence of a state commission of inquiry. In February, Netanyahu publicly released the 55-page response he’d provided Englman, which referred to various original sources outside the public record.

According to the Ynet investigation, which had access to some of those sources, a comparison between the two “reveals omissions and distortions, manipulations and at times simple lies – on precisely the questions that get to the heart of responsibility for the failure.”

Among the inconsistencies, the newspaper charged, was Netanyahu’s representation of himself as having pushed security agencies to assassinate Hamas leaders in the run-up to the attack. In fact, according to the documents cited in the report, both Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi had repeatedly called for the move, and Netanyahu had repeatedly batted away the suggestion.

The report cited security chiefs calling for preemptive actions against Hamas in April, May, July, August, September and October, and Netanyahu’s various responses, including the assertion in May that “there is currently stability and strong deterrence against Hamas,” a directive in September to ensure “as quiet a holiday period as possible,” and a refusal days before the attack to approve the assassinations of Hamas leaders, out of concern it would jeopardize peace talks with Saudi Arabia.

In Eisenkot’s post sharing his lawyers’ letter, he asserted that the recent reports “leave no room for doubt: The prime minister of Israel and those closest to him abused their positions, forged minutes, abused their authority and lied to both the public and government institutions tasked with oversight. These are, apparently, criminal actions.”

In separate remarks quoted by Channel 12, the Yashar chief said of the Avi Gil interview: “At a time when the government of Israel was sending courageous and dedicated soldiers into combat in an unprecedentedly just war over and over again, a time when whole families placed their security and the fate of their loved ones in [the government’s] hands, including my family, Netanyahu misled, deceived and betrayed the trust of an entire state, while endangering the security of its citizens.”

Eisenkot said the prime minister went into October 7 “arrogant in the face of repeated warnings that he received at home and from abroad, scorning alerts and preparations from security bodies.” During the attack, “while residents of the Gaza border area were fighting for their lives with their bare hands, the prime minister and those close to him occupied themselves with the creation of an alternative reality to acquit him – the one who directed 20 years of policy and led the state on the morning of the disaster – of responsibility for the State of Israel’s greatest failure.”

“We will put an end to their criminality, and the culture of lies that’s taken root,” pledged Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff. “As someone who has worked on the security of Israel for my whole life, I assure you – to invent a theory of treason is madness, a breach of trust, and testifies to an extreme lack of fitness. Any person to whom that sort of behavior is attributed has a duty to leave public life immediately,” he said.

In another post, the Yashar chief wrote that “while our brothers and sisters in the border region were slaughtered by Hamas, Netanyahu worked on changing protocols instead of saving them,” adding: Nothing will save him from the state commission of inquiry we’ll establish after the election.”

Netanyahu has resisted forming a state commission of inquiry, the highest investigative body in Israel, into the failures surrounding the attack, despite demands from bereaved families and survivors, and the majority of the country. The premier has argued a state probe would be biased against his government, and has advocated a new mechanism that would rely on politicians to define its scope.

Liberman calls for PM to be investigated for treason

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman called in a video statement for Baharav-Miara to order an “immediate criminal investigation into the prime minister and his people on charges of treason and conspiracy.”

He also called on Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir to “prevent any attempt to use the IDF for political purposes solely to change the public agenda a moment before the election” on October 27.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, the B’Yachad party number 2, posted: “The truth that emerged from [Maj.] Gen. Avi Gil’s testimony is simple and irrefutable: Netanyahu was warned and ignored it, and since then he’s been evading responsibility, whining that they didn’t wake him up and doing everything in his power to rewrite history. If he remains in his role, there will be another October 7, and our children will be massacred.”

B’Yachad party leader Naftali Bennett said that “Netanyahu must go home, today,” calling Gil’s testimony “further proof that Netanyahu bears personal and direct responsibility for the October 7 massacre.”

“At a time when our soldiers were fighting in the Gaza border communities, and parents were fighting to find a sign of life from their children, Netanyahu and his people worked to change and forge lists and protocols.”

“This isn’t just testimony that demands a state commission of inquiry, but also a criminal investigation. The nation of Israel deserves a prime minister whose life mission is fighting for its citizens, not hiding the truth. A prime minister who deals in whitewashing and ‘narrative’ while our sons and daughters are murdered, burned, and kidnapped cannot remain in office one more minute.”

Democrats chairman Yair Golan called Gil’s allegations an “earthquake,” “among the most severe ever heard in Israel,” and charged that “Netanyahu’s guilt and responsibility for the massacre of 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 251 others has never been clearer. Netanyahu committed a heinous crime against the residents of the Gaza border area, the survivors of [Hamas] captivity, and the nation of Israel as a whole.”

Echoing his colleagues, Golan called on the attorney general to open a criminal investigation, “including an investigation of the involvement and responsibility of all officials in the Prime Minister’s Office, up to the most senior echelon.” He added that “the preservation of the original recordings, minutes, and documents must be secured immediately.”

Golan added that “Israel’s citizens have one response to this criminality by Netanyahu and his office: The ballot box. We will replace them and we will establish an independent state commission of inquiry, we will expose the facts in full, and we will ensure that none of those responsible can escape clarity about their responsibility for the worst disaster in Israel’s history.”

Israel’s national elections, the first since the Hamas attack, are set for October 27.

Elkin, amid anger at PM, says Gil interview was biased

Amid the furious statements from the opposition, Likud MK Ze’ev Elkin, who serves as a minister in the Finance Ministry, took issue with the interview itself.

“There is an investigation into this, and I think we need to wait and see where it will lead,” he told the Kan public broadcaster, referring to the allegations against Braverman. “It’s impossible to speak about this from the testimony of one side, when there’s a dispute over what exactly happened there.”

“The moment I see bad faith [regarding the questions on that subject and] in other questions of that type, it’s very hard for me to take the rest of the interview seriously, because in every corner I see statements that flow from an ideological, political position,” he said.

Lazar Berman and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.