Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied that he received a warning from Egyptian intelligence about Hamas’ impending October 7 attack, rejecting media reports that he had prior knowledge of the assault.
“In the months preceding 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 source conveyed an Egyptian warning to the Prime Minister,” Netanyahu wrote.
He added, “The Prime Minister instructed to file a libel suit on this matter as well.”
“Prime Minister Netanyahu has never met or spoken with the head of intelligence of a foreign country without their Israeli counterparts,” he emphasized.
Egyptian officials issued a similar denial days after the October 7 attack, disputing reports in Israeli media that Egypt had alerted Israel to a major Hamas operation 10 days before the war.
The reports claimed Intelligence Minister Abbas Kamel had contacted Israel to warn that Hamas was planning a “terrible operation.” Egyptian officials explicitly rejected those claims after the attack.
Netanyahu said articles alleging that he knew about Hamas’ plans before October 7 were part of “a vile and false campaign aimed at pinning all of Ronen Bar’s failures and crimes on the eve of October 7 on Prime Minister Netanyahu.”
He accused Bar of having information about the threat before the attack but failing to inform him or take sufficient action.
“Ronen Bar decided not to call and update the Prime Minister, not to alert the readiness squads and IDF forces in the field, not to evacuate the Nova festival,” Netanyahu wrote, alleging that Bar instead dispatched a small team to address the threat.
Bar, the former head of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency, was dismissed by Netanyahu in March 2025 over what the prime minister described as a loss of trust. The dismissal prompted mass protests and was temporarily blocked by the Supreme Court.
After accepting responsibility for the agency’s failures surrounding the October 7 attack, Bar resigned in June 2025.
