It's All Going Wrong - Are Netanyahu's October 7th Claims Collapsing?

Right, so October 7, 2023, is frequently referred to in Israeli political and military discourse as a day of unprecedented horror. The coordinated assault led by Hamas on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of over 1,100 Israelis, most of them civilians, and shattered the illusion of invulnerability that the Israeli state had cultivated over decades. The attack exposed systemic vulnerabilities in what was widely regarded as the Middle East's most sophisticated intelligence and defence apparatus. Yet, nearly two years afterwards, amidst much cracking of the story already, from Hannibal Directives being issued, to eyewitness accounts claiming IDF tanks and gunships were targeting their own people, to all the warnings of a Hamas plot having been handed to Israel in the days and weeks before, even bigger cracks in the story are now beginning to show in the narrative that this was all complete surprise.
A Testimony from one soldier in particular right now, but taken with others we’ve from other soldiers, survivors, and analysts are painting a far more disturbing picture: not one of total blindness, but of ignored intelligence, cancelled standard military procedures, delayed responses, and a state that has consistently refused to allow any meaningful independent investigation into what actually happened that night. At the heart of this growing body of evidence is a question that refuses to go away: if Israel has nothing to hide, then why is it hiding everything?
Right, so the foundation of the official Israeli account is that October 7 was a shock, an unforeseeable act of savagery. But mounting evidence demonstrates that this was not a surprise at all in operational terms. There were warnings, many of them explicit, credible, and urgent.
Israeli surveillance spotters, many of them young female soldiers stationed in outposts along the Gaza border, repeatedly alerted their superiors about Hamas military exercises that clearly resembled preparations for an assault. They reported live-fire training, trench digging, and simulations of raids on kibbutzim. These warnings were not hypothetical or ambiguous; they were timely, specific, and documented. Yet, their concerns were repeatedly dismissed as exaggerated or hysterical.
The failure did not stop at the lower echelons of the chain of command. In July 2023, Israel's own elite signals intelligence unit, Unit 8200, produced a report known as "The Jericho Wall." This report outlined a probable Hamas assault plan that matched almost precisely the tactics used on October 7: coordinated rocket barrages, drone interference, border breaches using explosives, and rapid infiltration via motorcycles and paragliders. That such a document was not acted upon reveals either astonishing arrogance or a refusal to believe that Palestinians could coordinate such an operation—a form of institutional racism cloaked in strategic hubris perhaps.
Adding to this damning picture is the report that Egypt's General Intelligence Directorate warned Israeli officials three days prior to the attack. The Egyptian government claimed that the warning was delivered clearly and urgently, warning of an imminent large-scale operation by Hamas. Benjamin Netanyahu initially denied receiving any such alert, only for later statements from Israeli intelligence sources to admit that a warning had, in fact, been delivered—but was considered too vague to act upon. Whether this was a misjudgement or a conscious dismissal remains one of the many in a long line of unanswered questions.
Perhaps the most shocking revelation is what has just now come out though. An Israeli soldier, Shalom Sheetrit, has testified before the Knesset that his unit had received a strange and uncharacteristic order: to cancel the morning patrols of the Gaza border fence on October 7. This testimony, as reported by The Cradle, has gone largely unaddressed by official channels and needless to say, the mainstream media.
These early-morning patrols were a routine, non-negotiable component of border security. They provided physical eyes on the ground to monitor for sabotage, infiltration, and suspicious activity that might escape even the most advanced surveillance technology. To cancel such patrols on any morning, let alone a holiday morning when forces were already understaffed, defies every logic of standard military protocol.
Given the pre-existing intelligence reports and warnings, this order cannot be written off as a mere oversight. The precise timing—between 5:20 and 9:00 a.m.—coincides exactly with the breach. This suggests either a catastrophic intelligence lapse or a deliberate stand-down, and neither explanation absolves the Israeli military or political leadership of responsibility. In fact, it raises the possibility that the state permitted, or at least risked, a limited breach to justify a broader agenda.
The horror of October 7 was not limited to the initial attack. It was compounded by the delay and inadequacy of the military response. Survivors from Be'eri, Kfar Aza, and Nir Oz have described how they hid in safe rooms for hours while Hamas fighters moved freely through their communities. They sent voice messages, live locations, and desperate pleas to emergency services and the IDF. Many received no response. Some were told to "stay quiet and wait."
Multiple survivors report seeing Israeli drones and helicopters overhead but receiving no protection. In several cases, residents have claimed that their loved ones were killed not just by Hamas gunfire, but by Israeli tank shells and helicopter attacks that targeted homes in which both militants and civilians were present. This feeds into the growing concern that the Hannibal Directive—a controversial Israeli military protocol authorizing the use of overwhelming force to prevent soldier abductions, even at the cost of the hostage's life—was invoked.
A July 2024 report by Al Jazeera suggests that the directive was very much used on October 7 and indeed former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has admitted as such. Knowing this, it means we know that the Israeli military authorised operations that knowingly endangered, and possibly killed, Israeli civilians. Therefore it is entirely believable, is it not, that Israel permitted this Hamas operation to happen, given the value they appear to place on the lives of their own people, if such a doctrine as the Hannibal Directive still exists?
To understand why Israel might have failed to act on the warnings it received, it is worth looking at the political climate in the months leading up to the attack. Netanyahu's government was besieged by mass protests, driven by his controversial judicial overhaul. Thousands of reservists, including pilots and intelligence officers, had pledged to withdraw from duty. His cabinet was fractured, his international standing diminished, and his corruption trial loomed large.
Then came October 7. Within hours, the protest movement collapsed. The opposition rallied behind the government. Military funding surged. Media scrutiny vanished. Netanyahu went from embattled leader to wartime prime minister.
The aftermath allowed Israel to launch its deadliest assault on Gaza to date, under the legitimising banner of self-defence. As Press TV have observed, the only other outlet I’ve noticed that has covered this testimony by Shalom Sheetrit, the attack gave the Israeli government carte blanche to do what it had long wanted to: destroy Hamas, neutralise Palestinian resistance, and reassert regional dominance. Whether or not the attack was allowed to happen, it is undeniable that it was politically expedient for Netanyahu.
Given the scale of the catastrophe, one might expect a nation to launch a transparent, independent inquiry to identify what went wrong and prevent it from happening again. Yet Israel has done the opposite hasn’t it? Military reviews have been kept secret. The testimonies of survivors and whistleblowers have been ignored. Calls for an independent, civilian-led commission have been met with silence or derision.
This refusal is perhaps the clearest indication that there is something to hide. If the government had truly been blindsided, it would have every incentive to demonstrate that it did everything possible. Instead, it has circled the wagons, protected high-level officials, and buried critical testimony. So the message this sends is unmistakable: transparency would be more damaging to Israel than silence.
The war in Gaza, launched in response to October 7, has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions, and created a humanitarian catastrophe that the UN and major NGOs describe as among the worst in recent memory.
If the moral foundation of this war was built on a preventable or permitted attack, then everything that followed is built on a lie. That includes the siege of Gaza, the bombing of hospitals, the starvation blockade, and the targeted assassinations of Palestinian leaders. Everything that has been done to Gaza and to its people, will have been built on deceit.
Under international law, a state that wages war based on manufactured or manipulated pretexts is culpable not only for the war itself but for the crimes committed during it. If Israeli leadership knowingly risked its own citizens’ lives to launch a war of political convenience, it would represent one of the gravest breaches of trust in modern history and given all of it would be done for Benjamin Netanyahu’s political expediency, he would surely end up going down as one of the most evil men in history?
The only way to restore a measure of trust and accountability is through a full, independent, international investigation. This inquiry must be empowered to obtain classified intelligence, compel testimony from military and political officials, and review the decisions made in the hours and days leading up to the attack.
It must investigate why the "Jericho Wall" report was ignored. It must examine who gave the stand-down order. It must explore why the Hannibal Directive was invoked. And it must place all of this within the broader political context of a state apparatus that stood to benefit from crisis.
Anything less is not just inadequate—it is complicit.
The state of Israel has claimed to act on behalf of its people. But in the wake of October 7, it has refused to explain why those people were left to die. It has suppressed testimonies, buried documents, and blocked independent scrutiny.
We must all demand that the right questions be asked. Why were border patrols cancelled on the very morning of the attack? Why were repeated warnings ignored? Why was the military response so catastrophically slow? And most damningly: why is the state so afraid of answering these questions?
In the end, the issue is not only what Hamas did and in no way have I sought to minimise that here. But it is equally important to find out exactly what Israel failed to do—and what it may have done to itself. If there is nothing to hide, then Israel must stop hiding, but the longer they do so, the more guilty they inevitably look as well.
Adding further fuel to this fire that Israel insists on lighting under itself are the reports that have come out from Israeli organisations in the form of B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights – Israel that have directly accused their own nation of committing genocide. These reports are absolutely excoriating, but if we find out going forwards that everything they contain has been built on a lie – it adds a whole new dimension to matters. We need that independent investigation, nations globally must call for it, but meanwhile check out the details of that story in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch.
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