Gen. Avi Gil, who held the post during the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023 and the first months of the war, made the claim in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 on Thursday.
Gil said Netanyahu at times agreed to a deal with Hamas, only to reverse course when far-right members of his coalition objected to ending the fighting. He said the gap widened between the ministers and the military and security services, and even Netanyahu’s own preferences.
Asked whether hostages had died for political reasons when they could have been saved, Gil said: “It’s true, they could have come back earlier”. Asked whether he had seen Netanyahu put his coalition and political survival ahead of hostages’ lives, he said yes.
Gil also challenged Netanyahu’s account of the day of the attack. He said the prime minister was woken when rockets began falling on Israel but did not ask to speak to senior security chiefs for two hours, and reached military headquarters in Tel Aviv only after the same delay.
Netanyahu says the security services deliberately kept him asleep despite having warnings, and that he could have stopped the attack had they woken him up. Gil rejected that, saying the army did not need the prime minister’s approval to call up reservists or strike Hamas leaders.
He further accused Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, of trying to falsify records from that day by changing the time of one of the prime minister’s calls with him. Gil said the change could have shifted blame for the failures onto the security services.
Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups took 251 people to Gaza in the attack, including 209 living hostages and the bodies of 42 people who had been killed. Of those who did not return, CNN’s figures show 16 were killed by captors, 11 died in Israeli military action, five died of wounds and eight died of unknown causes.
The army and security services have admitted failing to prevent the attack, and the chiefs of the general staff and the Shin Bet security service have left their posts. Political responsibility remains unresolved.
Netanyahu has not admitted personal errors and has opposed from the start an independent state commission of inquiry, whose members would be chosen by the Supreme Court president. His coalition is pushing instead for a panel selected by parliament.
(jh)
Source: PAP