Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's former military secretary, Avi Gil, told N12 News and Israel Hayom on Thursday that Netanyahu gave an inaccurate account of his October 7 timeline and added that his chief of staff allegedly tried to change the official record of the prime minister's schedule.
Shortly before leaving his position, Gil made sure the entire contents of his notebooks were digitized and stored on a classified computer in the Military Intelligence Directorate. "A state commission of inquiry will receive everything I have on the day it is established, including what I have to say," he clarified.
He explained in the interview that at the end of October 2023, weeks after the start of the war, several people approached him about collecting transcripts of the day.
Recounting the hours leading up to the attack, Gil said intelligence reports circulated through the security establishment's systems overnight, reaching computers in the offices of the head of the Research Division and the Military Intelligence Directorate.
According to him, the information included suspicious indicators alongside other signs that appeared to ease concerns. Some of the intelligence also reached the military secretariat's intelligence department.
'We are at war'
At 3:55 a.m., an intelligence assistant received an alert about an intelligence message that mentioned the word "routine" and indicated another consultation would take place later that day. Based on that information, the intelligence assistant decided not to wake either the prime minister or the military secretary, believing the situation was not urgent enough to warrant doing so.
At 6:12 a.m., he was awakened by a phone call from the head of the Shin Bet chief's office, who asked him to return the call using the secure red telephone. When asked what the call was about, the head of the office replied in one word: "South."
At 6:17 a.m., he called back and was briefed on suspicious indicators, including the activation of SIM cards and reports of Hamas operatives moving underground.
At 6:29 a.m., he woke Netanyahu with a phone call over a non-secure line and informed him: "Hamas has launched extensive fire, a large-scale surprise attack. I am gathering information and will call you as soon as possible."
Eleven minutes later, at 6:40 a.m., he called the prime minister again and told him: "We are at war."
"In January, one of the stenographers approached me and told me she had been instructed to retrieve the transcript of that 6:40 a.m. phone call and had been instructed [by Netanyahu's then chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman] to change the time of the call from 6:40 to 6:29," Gil said in the interview.
Asked why someone would want to change the times, Gil said, "Someone was dealing with particular narratives," adding that he quietly flagged the incident to the attorney-general during a meeting.
"It was important for me to document it so that if someone later came along and presented evidence of things that I had documented differently, that I remembered differently, and that contradicted the transcripts of organizations and the memoranda recorded by people in various places, we would have an example of it, the falsification," he stated.
He said that aside from the change made to the time stamp of the phone call, he did not know of other changes.
"Nevertheless, I have one recommendation for the commission of inquiry that will be established, and for the State Comptroller, who obtained transcripts: Do not rely solely on the transcripts," he urged. "Demand the original recordings. Listen to them."
Regarding the hostages, Gil stated that Israel could have returned the hostages earlier; he said, "We could have."
PM's ex-military secretary: 'What the public is being told is not what actually happened'
Gil also rejected claims that betrayal had led to the massacre.
"There was no betrayal," he clarified, warning that those spreading such allegations were undermining the resilience of Israeli society. "There were failures. The system failed utterly... Anyone who alleges betrayal without a shred of evidence is not only spreading a lie, but is also harming the resilience and strength of this wonderful thing called the State of Israel."
Gil said that he thought he would be speaking to a state commission of inquiry about the massacre, which is why he kept his accounts of the day private. He now believes that one will never be formed.
"Three years have passed since October 7, and two years since I retired from the IDF. I hoped a state commission of inquiry would be established to investigate everything. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened, and I doubt it will.”
Gil said that once he realized he wouldn't be speaking to a state commission of inquiry, he felt he needed to speak about his experience on October 7. Additionally, he said that the events of the flydubai flight and the appeals of bereaved families and former hostages pushed him to speak.
"In the past few weeks, I realized I had to come out and say what I knew. Because we saw what happened recently when there is no investigation," he said, referencing the flydubai flight.
“What the public is being told is not what actually happened,” he added. “This isn’t my truth. It’s the country’s truth.”
The fact that a state commission of inquiry had yet to be established was widening the gap between the facts and the information being presented to the public, Gil said. He called for the establishment of a state commission of inquiry to investigate the sequence of events and determine responsibility for the failures.
"I think we are tearing Israeli society apart because of the lies," he said, adding that there are discrepancies between what the public has been told and what actually happened.
"What I saw is not faithfully reflected in the account of everything that was said during the discussions," referencing the document prepared by Netanyahu for the State Comptroller. "It does not even reflect half the picture. I am talking about lies, half-truths, things that do not reflect what I witnessed during my time as military secretary."
Gil told reporters that Netanyahu had heard several warnings before the October 7 massacre about suspicious activity in Gaza, but they were all shot down. "October 7 was Israel’s failure. Netanyahu heard it all from agency heads, everything that was known. There were suggestions to do targeted strikes in Gaza from time to time, but they were all denied."
He also recounted that in July 2023, while Netanyahu was hospitalized, former Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) head Ronen Bar requested to speak with him and warned of the possibility of war.
Touching on the recent reports of warnings given to Netanyahu from Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed and Egypt, he stated that he had not been in the PMO during the dates of the talks between the prime minister and MZB, and had not been aware until recently of matters with Egypt.
However, he said that a plane often used by Egyptian intelligence had landed in Israel for about an hour, citing recent reports.
"An aircraft like that came for a purpose. I believe someone in Israel can shed light on what happened, one way or another."
Gil concluded by placing the responsibility for the failures of October 7 on Netanyahu.
"I do not understand in what world it is possible to separate the concept of leadership from the concept of responsibility," he said. "There is no leadership without responsibility."
Walla contributed to this report.