Was he aware of this? The Israeli government — including Benjamin Netanyahu himself — has been repeatedly warned by Egypt that the Palestinians are up to "something big," but has ignored those warnings, an Egyptian intelligence official told The Associated Press. This information was immediately denied by Jerusalem.
"We warned them that the situation was going to explode, and that very soon it was going to be something big. But they underestimated those warnings," the official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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One of these warnings was reportedly addressed personally to Benjamin Netanyahu by Egypt's intelligence minister, General Abbas Kamel. The latter reportedly warned the head of the Israeli government 10 days before the Hamas attack that Palestinians in Gaza were likely to do "something unusual, a terrible operation," according to the Ynet news site, cited by The Times of Israel. According to the site, this warning was ignored by Benjamin Netanyahu, who reportedly replied that the Israeli army was already "overwhelmed" by the unrest in the West Bank.
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The Israeli Prime Minister's Office issued a statement on Monday saying the reports were "absolutely false." "No prior message has arrived from Egypt and the prime minister has neither spoken nor met with the head of Egyptian intelligence since the formation of the government (in November 2022, editor's note), neither directly nor indirectly. This is totally fake news," it said.
The Prime Minister's Office:
The report to the effect that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received a message in advance from Egypt is absolutely false.
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) October 9, 2023
The Israeli army appeared to be totally caught off guard by the surprise Hamas attack, which has killed more than 800 people since Saturday on the Israeli side and 560 in the Gaza Strip, according to the latest toll. According to Reuters, the Palestinian Islamist organization had undertaken a meticulous counterintelligence campaign to deceive Israeli intelligence into convincing it did not want confrontation.
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This operation would even have allowed him to replicate an Israeli settlement in Gaza, for training purposes. Israel must have been aware of these maneuvers, "but they were convinced that Hamas was not willing to engage in a confrontation," a source close to the organization told the news agency.