Prime Minister Netanyahu
Prime Minister NetanyahuReuters

Prime Minister Netanyahu has requested a second hearing before the State Comptroller publishes his reports on the Gaza tunnels. This in addition to a previous hearing in which the Prime Minister presented his version of events during the Protective Edge campaign. The Comptroller, Yosef Shapira, has acceded to the Prime Minister's request according to a Channel 2 report Wednesday.

Netanyahu attaches great importance to the report and in media briefings and interviews he has devoted a significant amount of time to the report.

Netanyahu wishes to present to the State Comptroller a number of proofs - among them the protocols of the cabinet meetings in which the topic of the tunnels came up, as well as operative decisions which were taken at some of those meetings.

In May, various sources from the Comptroller's report were leaked and were apparently unfavorable towards the Prime Minister. At that point Netanyahu's aides declared that this was a "sloppy report by a flippant comptroller searching for headlines and leaking the main aspects of his report before it is published. We reject the claims if they indeed appear in this manner. The details are factually inaccurate as the entire Protective Edge campaign was managed with total cabinet transparency."

In July the Prime Minister's office published an exceptional announcement about the cabinet discussions, stating that "The notion that Israel did not prepare beforehand for the tunnel threat is unfounded. It has been claimed that before the Protective Edge campaign the threat had not been presented to the cabinet and the cabinet did not know that they extended into Israeli territory. This is a lie.

"Between 26.11.2013 and 3.7.2014, the tunnel threat was presented in all of its severity at nine separate cabinet meetings. The protocols prove this unequivocally."

Netanyahu's bureau added that "Over the year and a half preceding the campaign, from 16.1.2013 until 9.7.2014, the Prime Minister assembled six professional meetings on the topic of the tunnels. These meetings were attended by the Defense Minister, the Chief of Staff, the Southern Region commander, as well as heads of the engineering and technology branches of the army."

They added that Netanyahu directed these bodies to promote operative and technological solutions to the tunnel threat. On 3.7.2014, before the beginning of the campaign and the ground offensive, the Prime Minister directed the army to prepare an offensive in order to neutralize the threat of these tunnels."