The protocol of a meeting held by the State Oversight Committee in the Knesset in March 2017 showed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described an attack planned by the Hamas movement from the Gaza Strip, which has now been proven to be an accurate description of the horrific attack that occurred on October 7, but at the same time, he said that his government’s policies deterred the movement.

Netanyahu said during the meeting held by the Parliamentary State Oversight Committee at the time to discuss a report issued by the Israeli State Comptroller regarding the “Protective Edge” military operation, which the Israeli army launched against the Hamas movement in 2014: “Hamas has an operational plan for a multiple attack.” Axes, including the firing of thousands of missiles at Israeli cities, naval commando raids, hang gliders, and incursions from dozens of tunnels, some of which occurred in Israeli territory.”

During the charged 3-1/2-hour discussion, Netanyahu also noted that Hamas is training special forces to kill and kidnap Israelis. “They calculated that if they could surprise us, they could put the plan into action,” he said.

This scenario, which the Prime Minister described, is similar to the events that occurred more than 6 years later, on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas militants infiltrated the border area with Israel in the Gaza Strip, by land, air and sea. They killed about 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 240 others, most of them civilians, under the cover of a torrent of missiles that were fired at Israeli towns and cities in the south.

From what Netanyahu said in the meeting held in 2017, the Hamas leadership began planning a large-scale attack years ago. He added: "This movement could have put the attack plan into action at any moment, but we do not control our opponent's decisions, and at the maximum, we can influence his ability to implement them." While the Prime Minister claimed that Hamas was deterred, he made clear that he had no illusions that it would abandon its plan.

Netanyahu added: “When I thought about thousands or more armed men infiltrating, seizing a town and taking hostages, I was sure that this would constitute a morale blow, and I confirmed this to the responsible authorities. We tried to avoid war in any way possible. However, no We must acknowledge that we are facing a cruel and "savage" enemy, and that avoiding escalation against such an enemy is not easy. There are 30,000 members of Hamas in Gaza, who wish to destroy us, and are preparing all the time, and are building means with which they can kill us, infiltrate and attack us. And these People committed to the annihilation of Israel, and living for this goal.”

Turning to his role in the containment policy, Netanyahu said: “One of the reasons for deterring ‘Hamas’ is that I have a policy, and I am not willing to tolerate even a splash of violence, and there is always a strong reaction on our part, usually very quick, to any splash of this kind”.

The State Comptroller’s report, which the committee discussed in 2017, focused on the management of the Israeli mini-ministerial council for political-security affairs [the “cabinet”] by Netanyahu and the then Defense Minister, Moshe Ya’alon, and indicated that this ministerial council failed to define concrete strategic goals for the army in Military Operation Protective Edge. The report also pointed out the presence of intelligence gaps and tactical errors in the work of the Israeli army, of which General Benny Gantz was commander, especially its lack of preparedness to confront the threat of Hamas’ tunnels.

Netanyahu rejected these criticisms completely, and said that he did everything in his power to keep the conflict under control, and that he punished Hamas for fighting Israel. He said during the meeting: “We did not want a war in the summer of 2014, and we tried to prevent it,” and stressed that in light of what Hamas had done, this military operation was inevitable.

Also now, Netanyahu is avoiding taking any responsibility for the failures that preceded the October 7 attack, even though many security service leaders have declared that they bear responsibility for them. Netanyahu points out that an investigation must be conducted to find out the facts of what happened, but the investigation should not be conducted until after the war ends.

It should also be noted that during the discussion in 2017, coalition MKs repeatedly clashed with opposition Knesset members and, at times, with the families of dead soldiers who attended the meeting, including Leah Goldin, the mother of soldier Hadar Goldin, who was killed. In that process, Hamas still holds his body and the body of soldier Oron Shaul in Gaza.

These scenes recall similar clashes between members of the Knesset and the families of kidnapped Israelis in recent months regarding the policy followed by the government and the agreements regarding the return of the hostages who were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. It is believed that 129 Israeli people kidnapped on October 7 are still being held in Gaza, and not all of them are alive, after 105 kidnapped were released during a week-long truce in late November.