Israeli Prime Minister's office accepted on Saturday (March 1) that Benjamin Netanyahu's intelligence officer had received an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) memo detailing suspicious Hamas activity just three hours before the October 7 attack - but did not pass it on. Netanyahu's office justified the act saying that the document had a non-urgent framing. 

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This came after a report by the Times of Israel said the IDF had drafted a document setting out the numerous worrying signs of Hamas activity in Gaza that night and sent it out to the intelligence officers of seven key Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu and then-defense minister Yoav Gallant.

The report claimed that since Gallant's office was unable to reach his intelligence officer, the document could not be passed on at the right time. 

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The intelligence officer of Netanyahu and other five staff members received the document. But Netanyahu’s officer did not pass the information up the chain, according to the report.

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IDF did not investigate further 

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It was further claimed in the report that the Israeli army did not investigate later that why the material was not passed on.

“I didn’t check what went on there [in the chain of command in the Prime Minister’s Office] because I was very wary of probing the political echelon. I met the prime minister’s intelligence officer several times in the street and I was careful not even to ask him about it,” Moshe Schneid, IDF officer who oversaw the IDF’s intelligence investigation said, as quoted in the report. 

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If Netanyahu's officer 'was a person of integrity...'

IDF chief Herzi Halevi was also quoted in the report saying the IDF did not publicise the fact that the Prime Minister’s Office was alerted to Hamas’s suspicious activity three hours ahead of the invasion “even though this could have helped us in the face of the bad things that are being said about us. We are very responsible and discreet. It’s a shame this is not reciprocated.”

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“If the prime minister’s intelligence officer was a person of integrity, he should already have told [Netanyahu] that he knew about [Hamas preparations just before the attack] and did not update [Netanyahu]. [The officer] did not do this," Halevi added. 

(With inputs from agencies)