Former IDF Military Intelligence Directorate chief Aharon Haliva said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had no interest in listening to intelligence assessments, and also received and ignored warnings to better prepare for the possibility of war before October 7 occurred, according to additional leaked recordings released by Channel 12 on Friday night.
“In the past, it was common for the prime minister to meet with the head of the Intelligence Directorate once a week,” the report quoted Haliva as saying in the recordings. “Then it went down to once a month, then once every two months. By the end, meetings were only once every six months.”
He added that “it is not for the head of the Intelligence Directorate to decide whether he would meet with the prime minister.”
Haliva then noted his belief that Iran will become nuclear, the Channel 12 report added.
“If one day the state investigation committee opens the books on the last 20 years of our dealings with the nuclear issue and the money we invested there, building the barrier in Gaza will be peanuts compared to the billions invested there for nothing.”
Haliva then noted his uncertainty in whether Israel made the correct decision to strike the Islamic Republic in its Operation Rising Lion (also known as the 12-Day War, June 13-24, 2025).
“I don’t know what should have been done. I’m not going into the analysis now, but [US President Donald] Trump should not have been pressured to withdraw from the nuclear deal.”
Haliva then claimed that four days into the Israel-Hamas War, on October 11, 2023, a heated debate took place between Netanyahu and then-defense minister Yoav Gallant, with the latter arguing that targets in Lebanon should have been struck at the very beginning of the war, which the prime minister later agreed to.
The additional recordings of Haliva came a week after the first leaked recordings of him were released, also by Channel 12, which included an incendiary remark by him about how “for every person killed on October 7 [by Hamas terrorists], 50 Palestinians need to die.”
He had also addressed last week a core intelligence failure on Israel’s part, saying, “One of the hardest problems before October 7 was the belief that intelligence was omnipotent. It is not just arrogance, it’s deeper.”
Maariv Online contributed to this report.