Witness: For years before Oct. 7, ‘PM told me he’d never order IDF to topple Hamas’
Channel 13’s Or Heller says PM told him alternative to Hamas was anarchy, ‘did not believe in any way in the possibility of military action to overthrow the Hamas regime’
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Benjamin Netanyahu stated on multiple occasions before October 7 that “he did not believe in any way in the possibility of military action to overthrow the Hamas regime,” in Gaza, Channel 13 military correspondent Or Heller revealed on Tuesday, drawing from what he said were multiple conversations with the prime minister.
“I heard what would later be called the Gaza concept from him during several meetings and conversations over the years,” Heller testified before an independent civilian commission of inquiry into the October 7 Hamas invasion and massacre.
“The prime minister told me over the years that he would never order the IDF to occupy Gaza and topple the Hamas regime” because “for him, the alternative was Somalia, that is, a territory without government, rule by armed gangs, without a monopoly on the means of violence, without a central army,” he stated.
The prime minister has said repeatedly since Hamas’s October 7 invasion and slaughter that he always wanted to destroy Hamas but never had the domestic or international legitimacy to mount a full-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip. At a press conference last week, Netanyahu lamented that, over the years, “there was no national or international legitimacy to go in, to conquer Gaza, to recapture the Philadelphi Corridor and the Rafah Crossing.”
According to Heller, Netanyahu repeatedly argued in favor of the “Whack-a-mole” approach, which maintains that “there is a monster beyond the fence. This monster needs to be tied with a rope to the wall so that we can raise our children in Nahal Oz, Nir Oz, Be’eri and Sderot. This monster needs to be hit on the head from time to time, which is really countless times” but cannot be completely defeated.
“I heard from the prime minister that he did not believe in any way in the possibility of military action to overthrow the Hamas regime,” he continued, arguing that part of the conception was the idea of throwing “pieces of steak into the monster’s cage so that she’ll be full and satisfied.”
Heller recalled face-to-face meetings with senior IDF and Shin Bet officials following 2021’s Operation Guardian of the Walls in which he “heard with my own ears the unequivocal recommendation to end the Whack-a-mole system, to eliminate Sinwar, to launch a surprise attack on Hamas, to eliminate the leaders of Hamas, in order to reset relations between Israel and Gaza.”
Netanyahu was aware of these recommendations but “of course it was top secret, I was forbidden to even hint at it on the air,” Heller stated — adding that as recently as their last discussion, during Operation Shield and Arrow, five months before October 7, Netanyahu “was convinced that the concept was correct.”
Heller was testifying before the so-called civil commission of inquiry, which was recently established by groups representing survivors and victims of the massacre in the wake of Netanyahu’s refusal to establish an official state probe.
During a press conference last week, Netanyahu came out against fully pulling out of Gaza after the war, arguing that if Israeli forces leave the so-called Philadelphi Corridor along Gaza’s border with Egypt, Hamas would be able to rearm.
Also testifying on Tuesday was former Mossad head Danny Yatom, who slammed the current government, arguing that far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich are “pushing us into the war of Gog and Magog,” a biblical reference to the Armageddon.
Yatom, who served as head of Israel’s foreign intelligence agency in the late 1990s before becoming a Labor lawmaker, accused Netanyahu of orchestrating attacks on the IDF and of lacking a coherent strategy in Gaza.
“There is no military strategy and there is no political strategy. The worst thing is that there is no political strategy. If you don’t know the political goal, you don’t know how to determine military goals,” he said, arguing that while Israel has “many tactical achievements, we have to sit down and think about what the strategy should be.”
The commission also heard testimony in closed session from an active duty IDF officer who fought against Hamas on October 7.
The officer, who testified anonymously, claimed that prior to the attack the IDF had followed a “new defense concept” focused on minimizing the forces in the area “and to start relying more on technological means.”
“The intention was to use the infantry forces only as a reserve, to minimize the proactive operations and the patrols along the barrier, and to rely heavily on the technological capacity in the area,” he said. “It’s a nice idea, and it sounds good when you describe it in a nice presentation, but these things do not stand up to the test of reality. In recent years, this has also been the perception in the north.”
“One of the lessons I took from 7/10 is the lack of command and control. There simply wasn’t any” on the brigade or divisional level, the officer asserted.
“I know from testimonies that there were sometimes significant forces of 50-100 fighters, entire companies equipped, who were not allowed to approach and did not know where to go,” he said. “If we waited for orders, there would be no one left to save.”
