Netanyahu denies receiving pre-October 7 warnings, threatens libel suits and blames ex-spy chief
Israel's prime minister has publicly denied reports that Egypt and the UAE warned him of Hamas's planned attack, says he will sue, and blames former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly denied receiving warnings from Egypt or the United Arab Emirates about Hamas’s planned 7 October 2023 attack, and said he will file a libel lawsuit over the reports.
Writing on X on Monday, Netanyahu said: “In the months leading up to October 7, Prime Minister Netanyahu did not meet or speak with Abbas Kamel, who was then head of Egypt’s General Intelligence Service, and no Israeli intelligence official conveyed an Egyptian warning to the prime minister.” The denial followed reports by The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic that Kamel had warned Israeli officials, including Netanyahu personally, of an imminent Hamas operation.
He did not say who the lawsuit would target; his office has threatened legal action against a number of outlets and journalists over unfavourable coverage.
Netanyahu instead blamed former Shin Bet director Ronen Bar, saying Bar and two other security chiefs “discussed all the warning signs” overnight on 7 October but decided not to alert the prime minister, not to alert security squads or forces in the field, and not to evacuate the Nova festival — sending only a small counterterrorism team. He accused “the left-wing media” of trying to pin Bar’s “failures and crimes” on him.
He also claimed Arab states were among “foreign and hostile states and actors” seeking to topple his government in favour of one led by Gadi Eisenkot, Yair Golan and Avigdor Liberman, framing the coming election as “either the right, or Palestine”.
The reports he denied began with a Haaretz investigation earlier this month, later backed by The New York Times, which found the UAE’s president had passed on a Hamas warning in late September 2023. The Times reviewed minutes of an October 1 security meeting at which the warning was never raised.
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