Larry Ramer is a jounalist specializing in business news, who has worked for a number of major Israeli media outlets including Globes.
Seeking to blame Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to prevent the October 7 attacks, Ronen Bar, the former Shin Bet director, has alleged that Netanyahu received many warnings suggesting that war with Hamas was imminent.
Little noticed, however, has been the fact that Bar’s allegations make his own conduct on the night before October 7, when he was essentially managing the country’s security, look even more inexcusable and grossly negligent. Any warnings would necessarily be passed on to Netanyahu by the Shabak.
Put another way, the more media claim that Israel was warned about October 7, the more horrible Bar’s failure to take significant action on the night before the slaughter becomes. And crucially, what most Israelis don’t seem to know is that the former director was hired not by Netanyahu, but by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
The truth, however, is that Netanyahu was never warned about an invasion by Hamas, even though young soldiers stationed near the border feared that such an attack was coming based solely on developments they physically saw on the Gaza side of the border. In fact, a few weeks before the tragedy, an elite military intelligence unit specifically predicted that an invasion could occur, but Netanyahu had no way of knowing that.
Given these points, it’s clear that Ronen Bar, Aharon Haliva - who was the head of military intelligence on October 7 - and then Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, should have known that an invasion was possible and should have told the prime minister that such an attack could be on the way.
In light of their failure to do so, along with Bar’s decision not to take significant action on the night before the slaughter and the IDF’s very poor response to the invasion, it’s clear that these three men, not Netanyahu, were primarily responsible for Israel’s failure to predict and respond properly to October 7.
Importantly, Haliva and Halevi were promoted to the general staff by the current leading opposition candidate for prime minister, Gadi Eizenkot, while Halevi was appointed chief of general staff by the “government of change."
Bar’s Failures on the Night Before October 7
In early 2024, it was reported that “hundreds of terrorists in the Gaza Strip (had) activated Israeli SIM cards in their phones" shortly before the invasion. (Later, the agency claimed that "Jonly" 45 such cards had been activated) In the Shin Bet’s own report, it was revealed that “At 1:00 a.m., hours before the attack, the (Shin Bet) reported Hamas was conducting emergency preparedness," JNS stated.
Despite these ominous signs, Bar’s own assertions that Israel had received multiple warnings in 2023 of an impending attack, and the fact that in 2018 and 2022 Israel had worried that it could be invaded by Hamas, the former Shin Bet head who was managing security on the night before October 7 failed to send soldiers to the border and failed to warn surrounding communities that an attack could be imminent.
Also critically, the director did not tell the police or the IDF to cancel events in the area. Hence the Nova party.
And finally, as has been widely reported, he did not ensure that Netanyahu was woken up. When Netanyahu was told, he took immediate action.
The Failure to Predict an Invasion
Returning to the issue of Netanyahu’s culpability, none of the warnings that the prime minister reportedly received before October 7 suggested that Hamas might invade Israel.
Indeed, even 15 minutes before the onslaught began, the prime minister’s military secretary told him that there were no “previous warnings" about an attack. Providing further evidence of the lack of general awareness about a potential invasion, as late as 3:55 am, the “security establishment" did not even appear to be concerned about Hamas’ activities on the border.
In the year before October 7, Netanyahu reportedly did receive warnings that a war or attacks involving Hamas could occur. But during all of the multiple, previous wars that Israel had fought with Hamas, the terror group had attacked Israel primarily by firing missiles at its cities.
Consequently, it was natural and even logical for Netanyahu to believe, absent contrary information from the Shabak, that Hamas would rely on the same tactic again in the next conflict.
Why Bar, Haleva and Halevi Should Have Known Weeks Before October 7 That an Invasion Could Occur
“For months" before October 7, IDF “lookouts" on the border “warned that they had seen unusual training and other actions taking place next to the border," The Jerusalem Post reported in November 2023. According to one such soldier, they even talked about the Hamas terrorists who were coming to the border potentially attacking Israel one day.
Around the same time, a noncommissioned officer (NCO) in the top IDF intel group, called Unit 8200, was suggesting that Hamas’ exercises could be important. Moreover, the division’s commander was briefed on the NCO’s warnings and, most critically, a summary of the NCO’s assertions was sent to Halevi, the former IDF chief of staff, the head of the Gaza Division’s intelligence unit, Aryeh Amidror, stated. And finally, on September 19, 2023, Unit 8200 officially warned that Hamas was training for a major invasion of Israel.
So even though young IDF soldiers saw that an invasion could be imminent just by looking at the border, Bar, whose agency was tasked with figuring out what Hamas was going to do and presumably had access to elite equipment and spies, had no idea that a ground attack was coming.
Similarly, Haleva and Halevi also appear to have had no clue about a potential invasion by Hamas terrorists, despite the fact that soldiers under their command were warning that such an event could occur, while Halevi reportedly received a direct message stating that Hamas’ exercises were worrisome. And if there was a prevailing "conceptsia" that Hamas was deterred, it should have been discarded immediately upon their receiving those warnings.
The IDF’s Delayed Response on October 7
A relatively small number of IDF soldiers were at the front. 90 minutes after the invasion was launched, it was reported that “between 7 and 8 a.m. there were 34 areas under attack, but [the IDF had reached] only 11 of them." Ultimately, soldiers were not deployed at all of these sites until 4 PM.
And crucially, large numbers of troops did not reach the vicinity of the Nova massacre until 11:35 am, around five hours after the invasion began, and the Israeli Air Force (IAF) did not bomb the border region on a large scale until 9:30 AM. Finally, the IAF did not seem to have had a major presence early on at Nova or in most communities that were under attack.
Halevi and, to a lesser extent, former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, have to bear the lion’s share of responsibility for the IDF’s abysmal overall response - the heroic soldiers and reservists who rushed to the area without receiving orders to do so were not sent there by Halevi and Gallant.
The Bottom Line on Responsibility for October 7
In modern governments, leaders are not expected to pore over satellite pictures or interview spies and then reach their own conclusions. Instead, they rely on professionals to assess the raw intelligence, reach accurate or at least plausible conclusions, and present them with those concepts. Netanyahu was not given any warnings about a potential invasion, thus he cannot be faulted for failing to prepare Israel for such a scenario.
Similarly, the chief of general staff (primarily) and the defense minister (secondarily), not the prime minister, are supposed to manage the logistical aspects of the army’s response to an emergency.
Since Bennett and Eizenkot hired or promoted Bar, Haliva and Halevi, who were all grossly negligent before and/or during the attack, Bennett and Eizenkot have meaningful responsibility for October 7 and the three men they appointed should bear the brunt of it.