"Egypt's intelligence minister was here. He spent 59 minutes on the ground. I'm turning to the security and law enforcement authorities. I want to know whom he met. Someone who met with him is trying to pin this on me." With those remarks Tuesday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that Abbas Kamel, Egypt's former intelligence chief, had visited Israel shortly before the October 7, 2023 massacre. According to reports, Kamel had arrived with a warning that Hamas was preparing a major attack.
Netanyahu's acknowledgment, delivered during an interview with Channel 14, has raised more questions than answers. On Wednesday morning, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana told Kan public radio that Kamel had arrived in Israel 11 days before the massacre and had apparently met a senior security official. "He met someone here. The question is whom," Ohana said. "My assessment is that he met one of the heads of the security establishment. The prime minister is calling for an investigation, and so am I. We have no answer to that question."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting with Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel in 2021
(Video: GPO)
The reported Egyptian warning is not new. Just two days after the massacre, ynet's Smadar Perry reported, following an Associated Press report about an Egyptian warning, that Kamel had conveyed a message to Netanyahu's office concerning "something unusual, a massive operation" that was being prepared in Gaza. The Prime Minister's Office denied receiving such a warning. Yet three years later, it remains unclear whether any serious effort was made to establish whether Egyptian officials had delivered information to Israel's security establishment, even if it had not reached Netanyahu personally.
According to previously published flight records, an aircraft associated with Egyptian intelligence landed at Ben Gurion Airport shortly before 10 a.m. on September 26, 2023. It departed for Cairo 67 minutes later.
Netanyahu insists that he neither spoke with nor met Kamel during the visit. But identifying who did meet him would appear to offer a relatively straightforward starting point for an investigation. The prime minister could, for example, ask Transportation Minister Miri Regev to have airport officials examine any available security camera footage or records from that day. Whether he has taken such a step remains unclear.
The episode also raises a broader question about Netanyahu's oversight of the security establishment. If Egypt's intelligence chief held a meeting with senior Israeli security officials less than two weeks before the massacre, how could the prime minister have been unaware of it? At the very least, the possibility of such an encounter taking place without his knowledge raises questions about the management of sensitive security and intelligence matters.
Netanyahu also offered an explanation for why he would not have met Kamel himself. "He didn't speak to me. Since when does an intelligence chief speak to a head of state? It's never happened to me. There's no such thing. He would always come with someone," he said.
Yet just two years earlier, Netanyahu had hosted Kamel at the prime minister's residence in Jerusalem. Footage released by the Prime Minister's Office in 2021 showed the two shaking hands and speaking during a visit by a delegation of senior Egyptian officials led by Kamel. While that meeting does not establish that Netanyahu met him in September 2023, it contradicts his broader claim that such encounters do not take place.
For now, Netanyahu's demand for answers has been made publicly on television. On previous occasions, the prime minister has issued formal announcements stating that he instructed security agencies to investigate particular matters. This time, however, it remains unclear whether he has issued such instructions or sought to examine the airport's security records.
'We do not underestimate any threat'
The controversy resurfaced last month when The Atlantic published an investigation revealing details of Kamel's brief September 26, 2023 visit. According to the magazine, the Egyptian intelligence chief warned Israeli officials that Hamas appeared to be preparing a major attack and urged Israel to introduce economic concessions in Gaza to prevent an escalation. The warning did not specify a date or provide detailed operational information. Flight records cited in the investigation showed that the aircraft carrying Kamel remained in Israel for just 67 minutes before returning to Cairo.
A former Israeli official interviewed by The Atlantic said the extraordinary nature of the visit should itself have made the urgency of Kamel's message clear. The fact that the head of Egyptian intelligence had traveled to Israel for such a brief meeting was significant. "The messenger was the message," the official said. About two hours after the Egyptian aircraft landed, Netanyahu attended a ceremony in Jerusalem marking the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. Reflecting on the lessons of that surprise attack, he declared: "We do not underestimate any threat."
The Wall Street Journal separately reported that Kamel called Netanyahu in early October 2023 to warn him of an impending attack from Gaza, after two earlier Egyptian warnings had reportedly gone unheeded. According to the newspaper, Kamel was growing increasingly anxious about the situation. The report reinforced the account first published by Smadar Perry in ynet and Yedioth Ahronoth in the days following the massacre. Netanyahu continues to deny that he spoke with Kamel or personally received the reported warning.