Head of the Yisrael Beytenu, MK Avigdor Liberman, claimed in a Tuesday post on X/Twitter that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ignored countless warnings given to him regarding Hamas's intentions prior to October 7, 2023.
"In 2016, he [Netanyahu] personally received an 11-page document from me that accurately described Hamas's intention to infiltrate the Gaza border communities - to murder, rape, and kidnap Israelis," Liberman wrote.
"We will make sure a state commission of inquiry is established to expose everything the government is trying to hide."
Netanyahu repeatedly ignored warnings
Liberman's claims come a mere week after leaked recordings released by Channel 12 revealed that Netanyahu had not been interested in listening to military intelligence and had ignored warnings to better prepare for the possibility of war before October 7.
“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 former IDF Military Intelligence Directorate chief Aharon 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 had also addressed what he believed to be a core intelligence failure on Israel’s part.
“One of the hardest problems before October 7 was the belief that intelligence was omnipotent. It is not just arrogance, it’s deeper.”
Maariv contributed to this report.