‘Unfathomable’: PM slammed over news he waited 3 hours to speak with IDF chief on Oct. 7
‘Our brothers and sisters were still alive,’ fumes October Council, after public broadcaster says Netanyahu didn’t talk to Herzi Halevi until 9:45 a.m., as massacres were unfolding
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was lambasted on Thursday after Kan news reported that on the morning of October 7, 2023, the premier did not speak with the head of the military for some three hours after he woke up, while thousands of Hamas terrorists invaded from Gaza and rampaged through Israeli border communities.
According to the report, Netanyahu did not request to talk to Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi until a situation assessment around 9:45 a.m. The premier was alerted to the attack at 6:29 a.m.
In response to the report, Netanyahu’s office published what it said was the premier’s full schedule that morning. It said it published the schedule “following incorrect reports that were recently published.”
The schedule showed him holding various conversations with top officials throughout the morning, while confirming that his first conversation with Halevi took place during an assessment that began just before 10 a.m.
In response to the Kan report, the October Council, an organization of October 7 survivors, bereaved families, and former hostages, said in a statement: “In those hours, our children, our parents, our brothers and our sisters were still alive.”
“They were hiding in safe-rooms, bleeding in the field, calling for help, waiting for the army and the state to arrive. The prime minister was already awake. The state was burning, and he didn’t speak with the IDF chief,” the council said.
Netanyahu has blamed the military and defense establishment for failing to prevent or quell the attack, claiming that had he been woken up overnight, as security officials saw signs of unusual and concerning Hamas activity in Gaza, he could have stopped it.
In its statement, the October Council said: “The question is no longer just who woke up Netanyahu and when. The question is what the prime minister of Israel did from the moment he woke up, while the citizens of Israel were being massacred and kidnapped.”
“Precisely on account of these three hours we must establish a state commission of inquiry,” the council said. “Not a commission that Netanyahu will appoint, not an investigation that he will rule over, but a state commission that will investigate, minute by minute: who knew, who called, who gave instructions, who didn’t, and most of all: why, while our loved ones were still alive, the state wasn’t there to save them.”
A state commission of inquiry is Israel’s highest investigative authority, with unique power to investigate national disasters, subpoena witnesses and issue personal recommendations that can end political careers. It is established by government decision, but acts independently of it, and comprises experts selected by the judiciary.
Netanyahu has adamantly opposed forming one because its members would be selected by the president of the Supreme Court, which he claims is biased against him.
The Yashar party, currently leading in polls ahead of the October 27 election, called the report “further proof of [Netanyahu’s] lack of leadership and weakness during the hardest moments in the history of the state.”
The prime minister “is afraid to open up the minutes [of the meetings that morning] because he knows what Israeli citizens will discover there, or perhaps even more so, what they will not discover there: leadership, initiative, direction, or responsibility,” said Yashar, led by Gadi Eisenkot, himself a former IDF chief of staff.
The Democrats party leader Yair Golan called it “unfathomable” that Netanyahu was not in touch with Halevi, “at a time when Hamas terrorists were capturing towns, murdering and raping and kidnapping Israelis.”
“Netanyahu is adrift, and has lost his grip on reality,” the left-wing leader wrote on X.
Golan, who on the morning of October 7 donned his IDF uniform and drove south to rescue people amid the onslaught, said the prime minister was trying to “rewrite history, and blame those who woke up and went out to fight” that day.
Earlier this week, Netanyahu’s wife Sara insinuated that Golan had advance notice of the attack, pushing one of a slew of baseless conspiracy theories seeking to blame figures on the left for the disaster.
Netanyahu’s October 7, 2023, morning schedule, as set out by the PMO
The full October 7 schedule published by the Prime Minister’s Office on Thursday read as follows:
“06:29 — The military secretary informs the prime minister for the first time that there is an attack from the Gaza Strip.
06:44 — Second update call with the military secretary. The prime minister asks why nothing had appeared in the intelligence conveyed to him, asks to check whether a large-scale reserve mobilization is required and whether it is possible to carry out an assassination of the Hamas leadership.
07:30 — The prime minister leaves for the Kirya (IDF headquarters) after the prime minister’s convoy has been prepared.
During the ride — The prime minister speaks with the defense minister (Yoav Gallant), who updates him that there is no clear situational picture. The prime minister instructs that a situational assessment be convened in the pit (the IDF’s underground command center) under his leadership.
Around 08:00 — The prime minister arrives at the Kirya (according to Shin Bet records, 08:22).
08:40 — The defense minister convenes the IDF chief of staff and the head of the Shin Bet to formulate a situational picture ahead of the discussion with the prime minister.
08:30–09:30 — The prime minister requests and receives intelligence updates and ongoing updates from the field from the military secretary’s staff.
09:47 — The prime minister’s military secretary receives, for the first time, the situational assessment document that the head of the Shin Bet had at 05:15 that morning. (The PMO has acknowledged that the premier’s intelligence officer received an IDF memo detailing suspicious Hamas activity three hours before the terror group’s invasion and onslaught began, and didn’t pass it on. The PMO argued that this was justified given what it said was the document’s non-urgent framing — ToI staff.)
09:55 — The prime minister holds a situational assessment in the pit with the participation of the defense minister, chief of staff, director of the Mossad, head of the Shin Bet, national security adviser and head of the Operations Directorate. The prime minister instructs that the border line be hermetically sealed to prevent hostages from being taken to Gaza and to prevent the continued entry of terrorists, rejects the IDF’s recommendation for partial reserve mobilization and instructs a full mobilization, and orders the issuance of a war order and preparations for the northern front.
At the conclusion of the meeting, the prime minister holds a limited security consultation with the defense minister and the chief of staff.”
The Times of Israel Community.