Less than a week before the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, onslaught, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed his top advisers and security chiefs to maintain the status quo that saw the terror group received economic incentives to maintain quiet, Channel 12 reported Sunday.
The report came days after Netanyahu released a 55-page document with select quotations from cabinet meetings in the years leading up to October 7, which painted a picture in which the premier ostensibly pushed for aggressive policies against Hamas, while his current political rivals and security chiefs urged long-term deals with the terror group and blocked the assassinations of its leaders.
Netanyahu omitted the October 1, 2023, meeting from his answers to the state comptroller’s inquiry into October 7 that he released on Thursday night.
“The prime minister expressed great appreciation to all the security services on their activities to maintain the quiet on all fronts,” reads the leaked summary from the protocol of that meeting, “with an emphasis on the holidays, and stresses that we must act with moderation in order to cool down the fronts and avoid escalation…”
In the meeting, according to the network, the security chiefs recommended that Israel move toward assassinating Hamas leaders. However, Netanyahu conditioned any such operations on conflict breaking out, and even then instructed the defense establishment to focus on the West Bank leadership.
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Netanyahu, the report said, defined Israel’s prime goals as making progress on normalization with Saudi Arabia and avoiding any escalation with adversaries.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) speaks to Mossad chief David Barnea at Mossad headquarters during a Rosh Hashanah toast on September 14, 2023. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)
Netanyahu, Mossad Chief David Barnea, then-defense minister Yoav Gallant, then-Shin Bet director Ronen Bar, then-IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, then-national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi and then-strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer attended the October 1, 2023, meeting, held at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem.
Senior defense officials told Channel 12 that Netanyahu’s release of selected quotations took them out of context and did “irreparable damage” to ties between the political leadership and defense officials.
‘The Israeli Forrest Gump’: Ex-PM Bennett mocks Netanyahu
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett, in a video statement Sunday evening, mocked Netanyahu’s document, calling the longtime premier “the Israeli Forrest Gump, a weak, pitiful, helpless nebbish who just happened to stumble into events.”
“He is not a leader, but someone who is led. He is not a commander, but a subordinate,” Bennett said.
The video statement from the former premier, who is considered Netanyahu’s most credible challenger in this year’s elections, referred to the classic 1994 film whose title character is a bystander to, or unwitting influence on, a series of pivotal events in the postwar US. The word “nebbish” is a Yiddish pejorative roughly translating to “loser.”
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett speaks during a conference in Herzliya on November 19, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/ Flash90)
“Netanyahu has criticism of the security establishment — so do I,” Bennett said, but noted that Netanyahu was “not a cabinet minister. He was the prime minister of Israel and the supreme commander of the State of Israel for 12.5 out of the 14 years preceding the greatest disaster in Israel’s history.”
He further criticized and mocked the prime minister for suggesting that he was “incapable” of commanding his own army or intelligence organizations.
“What emerges from it is that Netanyahu did not lead, did not manage, and did not govern,” Bennett said, adding that while the prime minister sought to absolve himself, he has instead drafted “the most severe indictment imaginable against a prime minister in Israel.”
He added, “In the 55 pages of this document, you see a weak man who allows the Hezbollah monster to grow before his eyes in the north and the Hamas monster to grow in the south to enormous dimensions, and he does nothing.”
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