Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday defended his pre‑Oct. 7 Gaza policy, arguing that he had warned in advance of a possible Hamas invasion and that the security establishment preferred “quiet for money” in the years before the attack.
Speaking at a closed session of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, which was formally convened to discuss the ongoing security challenges on multiple fronts, Netanyahu devoted much of his opening remarks to revisiting the events of Oct. 7, reading aloud from documents and quotes that he said showed he was not responsible for the failures that preceded the Hamas-led assault.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a closed session of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee
Netanyahu attributed some of the quotations to former prime minister Naftali Bennett and former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, saying they too believed there was no imminent danger of escalation from Gaza.
He presented what he described as internal documents and protocols from the years before the attack, claiming they showed that he repeatedly warned of a potential cross-border incursion and pressed to eliminate Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif. At the same time, he said, senior defense officials consistently favored maintaining calm in Gaza in exchange for financial transfers to the territory.
Addressing criticism that his controversial judicial reform had weakened Israel’s deterrence, Netanyahu argued the opposite. “It actually restrained Hamas, because they thought Israel was preoccupied with internal debates,” he said.
He also suggested that after State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman obtained some of the classified material, it was “not by chance” that a petition was filed to the High Court demanding that Englman be barred from investigating the government’s conduct. Netanyahu has the authority, through a formal process, to declassify the pre‑Oct. 7 protocols he cited, but he has so far refrained from doing so, leaving them out of public view.
During the session, Chili Tropper of the centrist opposition party Blue and White asked Netanyahu about conspiracy theories circulating that Israel had been “betrayed” before Oct. 7. Netanyahu replied, “I tend to believe there was no betrayal — there was a longstanding misconception.”
Tensions flared when Elazar Stern of Yesh Atid interrupted the prime minister, urging him to stick to the committee’s agenda of current security arenas. Committee Chair Boaz Bismuth (Likud) moved to remove Stern from the room, but Netanyahu asked that he be allowed to stay. Stern ultimately left anyway, accompanied by Meir Cohen (Yesh Atid).
As the meeting unfolded, MK Moshe Tur‑Paz (Yesh Atid) posted on X: “Hamas is deterred! I hear they are opening archives, so in my notebook from the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee these two words are highlighted — August 2023. Two months before the massacre. Speaker: Benjamin Netanyahu.”