Netanyahu claims security officials intentionally failed to wake him during October 7 attack

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sparked intense political backlash ahead of the October 2026 elections by claiming security officials deliberately chose not to wake him on the morning of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack. Netanyahu asserts he would have immediately alerted the military and prevented the massacre. Concurrently, his wife Sara Netanyahu accused opposition figure Yair Golan of having advance knowledge of the attack, prompting Golan to threaten an 830,000-dollar libel lawsuit.

Netanyahu's October 7 non-notification claims

• ▪Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that if he had been woken, he would have immediately put the entire military on alert, mobilized the air force, and warned Gaza border communities, which would have prevented the invasion.
• ▪KAN News reported that Benjamin Netanyahu did not speak to then-IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi on October 7, 2023, until 9:45 a.m., three hours after the Hamas attack began.
• ▪Benjamin Netanyahu's office acknowledged that his intelligence officer received an IDF memo detailing suspicious Hamas activity three hours before the October 7, 2023, attack but did not pass it to the prime minister.
• ▪Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed on September 1, 2026, that senior IDF and defense officials deliberately chose not to wake him in the hours before the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

Security officials' deterrence assessment

• ▪Israel's security chiefs at the time of the October 7, 2023, attack stated that based on the intelligence available that night, they did not assess that Hamas was about to launch an invasion.
• ▪Benjamin Netanyahu claimed security chiefs, including then-Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, refrained from waking him to avoid a "miscalculation" that could trigger a military escalation with Hamas.
• ▪Benjamin Netanyahu released a video clarifying that neither he nor his wife was accusing security officials of "betrayal" regarding the October 7, 2023, attack, but rather of a "great failure."

Sara Netanyahu's Golan accusations

• ▪Sara Netanyahu claimed in an August 31, 2026, television interview that center-left Democrats party leader Yair Golan had advance knowledge of the Hamas attack plan before it occurred on October 7, 2023.
• ▪Sara Netanyahu pointed to Yair Golan being "dressed and ready" at dawn on October 7, 2023, to rescue people as evidence that he had prior knowledge of the attack while others did not.

Golan's libel lawsuit threat

• ▪Yair Golan demanded that Benjamin Netanyahu apologize to soldiers and condemn the conspiracy theories and lies spread by his wife, Sara Netanyahu.
• ▪Yair Golan threatened to sue Sara Netanyahu for 2.5 million shekels (around $830,000) for libel unless she issued an apology and donated compensation to survivors of the Nova music festival.

Upcoming Israeli elections

• ▪Former army chief Gadi Eisenkot, who has emerged as a frontrunner to challenge Benjamin Netanyahu in the October 2026 election, condemned the accusations spread by Sara Netanyahu as a "mad conspiracy."
• ▪Benjamin Netanyahu is heading into close-fought national elections scheduled for October 2026, amid sustained public debate over who bears responsibility for the October 7, 2023, security failures.

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