Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to deflect responsibility for the security lapses of October 7, 2023, attributing the failures instead to the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and his predecessors. On February 5, he released a redacted 55-page document containing his official responses to questions posed by State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman, who examined the catastrophic security breakdown that enabled the Hamas-led assault. The dossier has triggered intense controversy, as Netanyahu explicitly refuses to accept personal culpability. Instead, he systematically redirects blame towards Israel’s security establishment, intelligence agencies and political rivals.
The document’s publication comes amid a charged political climate, with Israel heading towards elections this year. Critics argue that the release is a calculated political move, designed to shape the narrative in Netanyahu’s favour. It portrays him as a hawkish leader whose instincts were repeatedly constrained by cautious military chiefs and politically weak opponents.
A central pillar of Netanyahu’s defence is his claim that he was misled by the IDF and the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service. He says the feedback he got from the intelligence services was that Hamas was interested in maintaining peace. He cites a meeting in September 2023 in which then defence minister Yoav Gallant and IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi reportedly advocated economic incentives for Hamas as a means of preserving peace. He also refers to a Shin Bet assessment issued at 5:15am on October 7, hours before the invasion, which he says described the likelihood of a large-scale conflict as low and advised against drastic measures to avoid “miscalculation”.
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He further insists that he was kept out of the loop during the critical early hours of the assault. According to his account, he was informed of the attack only at 6:29am by his military secretary and convened his first situational assessment shortly afterwards. He denies receiving earlier warnings that would have justified raising the level of alert, arguing that the intelligence community failed to communicate the scale and immediacy of Hamas’s preparations.
The dossier relies heavily on what critics describe as curated and selective quotations from cabinet meetings and security consultations spanning more than a decade. Netanyahu uses these excerpts to argue that he consistently favoured aggressive action against Hamas, including targeted assassinations of leaders such as Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, but was blocked by security chiefs and political rivals fearful of escalation.
A significant portion of the document targets Naftali Bennett, a former prime minister and a leading challenger in the 2026 elections. Netanyahu cites minutes from a 2014 cabinet meeting during Operation Protective Edge in which Bennett reportedly said, “I never spoke about occupying Gaza”, while figures such as Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot described a ground invasion as a strategic mistake. By releasing these quotations, Netanyahu seeks to portray his current political rivals as having historically opposed the measures he argues were necessary to dismantle Hamas.
The dossier has prompted strong rebuttals from many of those quoted, several of whom accuse Netanyahu of distorting the historical record and stripping remarks of their context. Journalists and critics have noted that in Netanyahu’s own memoir, Bibi: My Story, published in 2022, he wrote that Bennett did advocate a full-scale invasion to “conquer Gaza” and that it was Netanyahu himself who opposed the idea because he did not want to govern two million Palestinians. This contradiction has fuelled accusations that the prime minister is reshaping past events for electoral advantage.
Former Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman has also challenged Netanyahu’s claims regarding assassinations. While the dossier suggests that security chiefs blocked efforts to eliminate Hamas leaders, Argaman stated in 2024 that he had pushed for Sinwar’s assassination for years and that it was Netanyahu’s government that ultimately prevented it.
Yoav Gallant, who was the defence minister on October 7, publicly called Netanyahu a liar following the document’s release. Gallant disputed Netanyahu’s account of the morning’s timeline, stating that he ordered the mobilisation of reserves at 9am, undermining Netanyahu’s assertion that he was managing the crisis at an early stage. Opposition leader Yair Lapid also rejected the prime minister’s defence, saying that he and senior security officials had repeatedly warned Netanyahu in the months before October 7 of the risk of a multi-front war, warnings he claims were ignored.
The dossier’s release is closely tied to a broader legal and political struggle over how the October 7 failures should be investigated. Englman initiated an inquiry, but the High Court of Justice ordered it suspended in December 2025. Netanyahu has portrayed this suspension as suspicious, noting that it occurred just six days after he submitted his response, and suggesting that the judiciary was seeking to suppress the “truth” contained in his document.
Netanyahu continues to reject demands for a State Commission of Inquiry, Israel’s highest and most independent investigative mechanism, appointed by the judiciary rather than the government. He argues that such a commission would be biased against him. Instead, he has advocated a political inquiry or a so-called balanced commission with members selected by the government, a proposal the opposition condemns as an attempt to evade meaningful accountability.
Ultimately, the latest response looks like Netanyahu’s pre-emptive defence against accusations of negligence. By selectively releasing official protocols, he seeks to construct a narrative in which he appears as a lone strategist undermined by a hesitant security establishment and weak political rivals. Yet the document’s contradictions, including conflicts with Netanyahu’s own published account, and the forceful denials from senior security figures suggest that rather than settling the question of responsibility, the dossier is likely to deepen Israel’s internal divisions over culpability for the disaster.