Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims that the Israeli leader had received no warnings about the planned attack by the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, the Jerusalem Post reported Thursday.
“I want to refute the claim made time and again by the current government that the political leadership was somehow unaware that Hamas was not deterred,” Lapid told the newspaper.
“It was indeed informed. I was informed,” he said, adding that the intelligence material he saw “was of course also seen by the prime minister and cabinet ministers.”
“It was clear what they (Hamas) wanted,” he said.
Lapid said he attended a security briefing on August 21, 2023, with Netanyahu and military adviser Maj. Gen. Avi Gil, who warned about Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance”: proxy fronts in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank.
He said he found the information “extraordinary,” but Netanyahu, he said, “seemed bored and indifferent to the subject and did not comment on it.”
Netanyahu’s right-wing conservative Likud party responded to Lapid.
“Yair Lapd is lying again,” the statement said. According to the organization, Netanyahu had no warning before October 7, when Hamas invaded Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages.
