Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected former Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) director Ronen Bar's allegation that he couldn't contact him on the morning of October 7, 2023, because "unlike previous prime ministers, he never provided the plaintiff with his personal telephone number."
The prime minister struck back at Bar on Wednesday, saying, "Ronen Bar, who saw the warning signs on the night of October 7 and didn't call me, says today that he didn't have my phone number. Ronen, are you serious? After all, you had my red phone number and could have called me immediately, as all heads of the security establishment do."
"The Shin Bet security detail, your subordinates who are with me 24/7, could have reached me within minutes. How many lives could we have saved if only you had called on time?" Netanyahu added in the X/Twitter post.
Bar's lawsuit stated that "It is worth noting that the prime minister did not get back to the head of the Shin Bet and did not intervene even after the massacre began."
The lawsuit also presents evidence from the night of October 7 that refutes the claim that the Shin Bet concealed information. It details how, contrary to the prime minister's claims, the Shin Bet began distributing warnings to all security agencies as early as 3:03 a.m.
"As the head of the service, I bear responsibility for the Shin Bet's failure to provide the intelligence required regarding the October 7 attack and its timing," Bar said in a statement issued on his behalf.
Eisenkot calls for Oct. 7 state commission
Yashar party chair Gadi Eisenkot responded to the revelatory allegations by pushing for a State Commission of Inquiry into the October 7 massacre by saying, "Netanyahu was warned and did not act. A State Commission of Inquiry that we will establish will investigate the disaster. The heads of the systems took responsibility and resigned long ago. We will not allow the master of evaders to escape the truth."
Opposition leader and former prime minister, Yair Lapid, also pressed the attack, accusing Netanyahu of prioritizing Qatari information over Israel's establishments.
On X, he wrote, "Netanyahu can no longer claim that he didn't know. All the materials were on his desk. The only question is why he preferred to listen to Qatar's agents in his office instead of the IDF and Shin Bet?"
"We can no longer say 'we didn't know,'" former prime minister Naftali Bennett wrote on X.
"The IDF chief of staff raises 10 red flags about the collapse of the army, and cabinet member [Shas leader Arye] Deri tells him: We intend to continue on the same path and institutionalize the evasion. Voting for Netanyahu, [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich, or Deri is a vote for draft evasion, for 150 reserve duty days a year, and for billions every year from the pockets of those who serve to the dodgers," he wrote, while promising to transfer NIS 30b. "from the dodgers to the serving."
Amir Bohbot contributed to this report.