Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late Thursday released the full 55-page document of his answers given to the state comptroller as part of the ombudsman’s investigation into the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led atrocities, pinning the failure to prevent the onslaught on political rivals and security chiefs while presenting himself in a positive light and reducing his responsibility for the attack.
Netanyahu earlier in the day presented lawmakers with materials he had previously submitted to the state comptroller from the years preceding the October 7 attack, the most devastating in Israel’s history and the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
In his answers to State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman, Netanyahu sought to build the case with curated quotes that he repeatedly pushed for assassinating Hamas leaders, but security chiefs consistently argued against the idea. His release of the document drew fierce denunciations from opposition figures, who noted warnings they issued in the weeks leading up to October 7 of a potential multi-front confect and that Hamas was not deterred.
Englman has not released findings from his investigation, which the High Court of Justice ordered him to freeze in December. The comptroller’s probe was controversial from the get-go, facing claims that it is severely flawed, would taint evidence and the investigative process, and that only a state commission of inquiry could properly investigate the disaster.
In a video statement released in parallel to the document, Netanyahu repeated his claim that he believed it was suspicious that the court halted the comptroller’s investigation only six days after they met on December 25, 2025.
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“For nearly two years, the comptroller worked with full freedom of action, without any interference whatsoever from the judicial system or from anyone else,” said Netanyahu.
“But only six days after I submitted this response, the Supreme Court decided to accept the attorney general’s request to immediately stop the comptroller’s work—work that was intended to uncover the truth,” he continued, demanding the court reverse its order and let Englman continue the investigation.
“Is this a coincidence? I say one simple thing — judge for yourselves.”
State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman attends a State Control Committee meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, May 12, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Netanyahu also repeated his call for a “democratic and balanced” commission of inquiry into October 7, with half its members chosen by the government and half by the opposition. Opinion polls have regularly shown a clear majority of Israelis support a state commission of inquiry, Israel’s highest investigative authority, which Netanyahu opposes because it is appointed by the judiciary, which he argues would be biased as his government is pushing to curb the courts’ powers.
Invading Gaza
In the answers released Thursday, Netanyahu told Englman that he examined the possibility of conquering the Gaza Strip many times in the years before the October 7 invasion of southern Israel, but the security establishment repeatedly shot it down, arguing that it would take a long, costly war without domestic or international legitimacy, and that there was no governing alternative to Hamas ready.
Netanyahu, who has never acknowledged direct responsibility for the failures surrounding October 7, stated that he repeatedly pushed for assassinating Hamas leaders, but security chiefs consistently argued against the idea.
Numerous reports and some top security officials themselves, however, have said publicly that Netanyahu and his government repeatedly rejected plans to kill senior Hamas leaders, while the military correspondent for Channel 13 news told an independent civilian commission of inquiry into the 2023 massacres that the prime minister “stated on multiple occasions before October 7 that “he did not believe in any way in the possibility of military action to overthrow the Hamas regime.”
Netanyahu also included in his response to Englman a cabinet meeting from July 2014, during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. He brought up up conquering Gaza, and then-economy minister Naftali Bennett, who reportedly said, “I never talked about ‘conquering Gaza.’” According to the protocols, Netanyahu responded that the only way to demilitarize Gaza is to conquer it militarily.
Bennett is the leading challenger to Netanyahu in this year’s elections, and the prime minister has a clear political incentive to portray Bennett as someone who argued against taking out Hamas.
Illustrative. IDF soldiers rush towards a target during the 2014 Gaza war, known in Israel as Operation Protective Edge, on August 4, 2014. (IDF Spokesperson’s Unit)
Netanyahu included quotes from the same discussion from other figures who are today highly critical of Netanyahu, including then- IDF deputy chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, chief of staff Benny Gantz, and defense minister Moshe Ya’alon, all of whom argued against taking the Gaza Strip.
Gantz, according to the records, called the idea “a strategic mistake,” while Eisenkot said it would be “a severe mistake.” Then-foreign minister Avigdor Liberman, who now leads an opposition party, said that “I am not recommending conquering or a ground invasion.”
The claim that Bennett and Liberman opposed conquering Gaza contradicted Netanyahu’s memoir released a year before the October 7 attack, in which he said they both wanted to topple Hamas, stressing that Bennett in particular urged for “a full-scale ground invasion to ‘conquer Gaza.’”
“That could only be done with the wholesale destruction of Gaza, with tens of thousands of civilian deaths,” Netanyahu wrote in “Bibi: My Story.” “After destroying the Hamas regime, Israel would have to govern two million Gazans for an indefinite period. I had no intention of doing that, especially since I had my gaze fixed on Iran, a much greater threat.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and former prime minister Naftali Bennett (right) attend the funeral of Rabbi Haim Drukman, at Merkaz Shapira, near Kiryat Malachi, on December 26, 2022. (Gil Cohen-Magen/ AFP)
Along with the citations from the 2014 meetings, Netanyahu shared selected quotes from subsequent debates that show senior security officials, including the head of the Shin Bet, saying that Hamas’s only ability to surprise Israel is through cross-border tunnels.
He selected a 2016 discussion in which Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman told Netanyahu that killing Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif would not cause Hamas to collapse, while the prime minister continued to argue for their assassination. In a 2024 interview, Argaman said that it was he who had pushed for years to take out the terror chiefs but was blocked by Netanyahu’s governments.
In the same 2016 debate, Eisenkot is quoted arguing against bringing down the Hamas government and brushing aside the idea that Israel’s intelligence wouldn’t pick up on a potential Hamas attack.
Netanyahu included quotes from a 2021 discussion after Operation Guardian of the Walls against Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in which he pushed again for assassinating Sinwar and Deif, while then-IDF chief of staff Aviv Kochavi firmly opposed such a policy. Netanyahu also shared a 2022 Shin Bet document that suggested easing economic pressure on Hamas instead of defeating the organization, as well as a series of meetings in 2023 in which he brought up killing Hamas leadership, but was opposed by the IDF and Shin Bet.
Focus on Gallant and Bar
Other partial quotes came from deliberations in the month before October 7, including a cabinet meeting on September 12, 2023, in which then-defense minister Yoav Gallant is cited as saying the security situation in Gaza is “stable,” and that Israel should “hold back its forces” against Hamas.
A summary that Netanyahu provided of a September 21, 2023 situational assessment headed by then-IDF chief Herzi Halevi said that “the chief of staff believes that it is possible to create a positive direction with Hamas” with economic incentives.
In a meeting with Netanyahu ten days before Hamas invaded, a representative from the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate said that Hamas “does want to reach an escalation,” while then-Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar said “they very much want to avoid a round of fighting.”
Gallant, subsequently fired by Netanyahu during the war, voiced a similar assessment about Hamas’s intentions, and pushed for a long-term arrangement with Hamas to ensure quiet.
Through the selected debates he released, Netanyahu looked to show that top ministers and security chiefs were consistently pushing for ways to buy extended quiet from Hamas, while the prime minister was arguing for preparations for assassinations of Hamas leaders.
He focused especially on Bar — whom he also sacked during the war — and releases quotes in the day leading up to the invasion in which the Shin Bet commander says that quiet has been returned to the Gaza border, and a “deeper arrangement” with Hamas can be reached.
From left to right: Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and Shin Bet security services director Ronen Bar at a special operations room overseeing a mission to release hostages in the Gaza Strip, June 8, 2024. (Shin Bet security service)
On the day of that attack itself, Netanyahu presented a timeline of the events.
At 6:29 a.m., his military secretary Maj. Gen. Avi Gil informed him that an attack has begun.
At 6:44 a.m., Netanyahu asked if Israel can take out Hamas leaders, and whether the call-up of reserves is necessary.
He headed to the IDF Kirya headquarters in Tel Aviv at 8 a.m. During a 9:55 a.m. meeting, he ordered the Gaza border closed hermetically to stop continued incursions and hostages being taken into Gaza, according to Netanyahu’s curated answers to Englman. He also said he ordered a full call-up of reserves and prepare for attacks from the north as well.
Netanyahu also stated that he ordered plans for a ground invasion of Gaza to be drawn up as well.
According to Netanyahu, in parallel Gil received a summary of the Shin Bet situational assessment that wrapped up at 5:15 a.m., shortly before the Hamas attack.
In the fragmented quotes shared by Netanyahu, the summary of the Shin Bet meeting said that the chances of a broad conflict with Hamas are low, and therefore Israeli actions should focus on stopping any attacks and not anything that could lead to a miscalculation and a war with Hamas.
Netanyahu pointed out that nowhere in the summary was there an instruction to update his military secretary, seeking to bolster his claim that key information was kept from him before the invasion.
“Even today Netanyahu doesn’t miss a chance to lie and incite, as well as harm the IDF and Shin Bet,” Gallant said Thursday after the release of the document. “The decision to enlist the entire reservist system was made by me at 9 a.m. on October 7, and Netanyahu repeated my order later on.”
“It is no surprise that Netanyahu is opposed to a state commission of inquiry, which would surely expose his lies,” Gallant added.
Liberman responded to the document by reposting a video from September 28, 2023, of him touring the Gaza border area and slamming its response to recent violence along the frontier.
“The prime minister committed that no one will return to targeted assassinations,” Liberman charged in the video from the time. “This is what surrendering to terror looks like.”
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid said that “in contrast to his claims, Netanyahu was again and again warned before October 7, including by med, and ignored all the warnings.” Lapid included a video of remarks he gave on September 20, 2023, warning Israelis “that we are coming dangerously close to a violent, multi-front conflict” and that “all the heads of the security services… are warning the government and the cabinet of a violent confrontation.”