A Channel 12 report alleges that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu ignored years of warnings from Israeli security officials about the growing Hamas threat in Gaza and rejected multiple opportunities to eliminate top Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Muhammad Deif. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) strongly denied the claims, calling the report “a recycling of baseless lies” intended to discredit Netanyahu. According to the Channel 12 investigation, Netanyahu received intelligence as early as 2014 detailing Hamas’s plans for a large-scale incursion into Israel. Despite repeated incidents of Hamas operatives approaching the border, the report claims Netanyahu blocked military responses and opted for a defensive strategy. The report alleges that Netanyahu invested heavily in constructing an underground barrier to thwart Hamas tunnels but devoted only a small fraction of resources to the above-ground border fence, which Hamas fighters easily breached during the October 7 attack. In 2018, the report claims, Netanyahu rejected a proposal by the Shin Bet and then-defense minister Avigdor Liberman to assassinate senior Hamas leaders Sinwar and Deif. Instead, Netanyahu allegedly sent then-Mossad chief Yossi Cohen to Qatar to secure financial aid for Hamas in exchange for maintaining calm along the Gaza border. The report further alleges that Netanyahu ignored intelligence indicating Qatar’s funds were also being funneled to Hamas’s military operations. Channel 12 also claimed Netanyahu opposed plans to target Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders and rejected an opportunity to assassinate Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps leader Qassem Soleimani, who was later killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2020. The report states that six days before Hamas’s October 7 assault, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi warned Netanyahu of the growing likelihood of war and presented plans to kill Hamas leaders. Netanyahu allegedly declined, with National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi publicly insisting at the time that Hamas was deterred. The Prime Minister’s Office issued a firm rebuttal to the report, dismissing it as “baseless lies that have been refuted in the past.” The PMO asserted that Netanyahu had taken decisive action against Hamas, citing his extension of Operation Guardian of the Walls in 2021 to target Deif and his oversight of the 2019 assassination of Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Baha Abu al-Ata. The PMO also denied claims that Qatari funds were used to support terrorism, insisting there was no such intelligence. It defended Netanyahu’s focus on building the underground barrier against Hamas tunnels, which it described as the primary threat identified by Israeli intelligence. Addressing allegations related to Iran, the PMO rejected claims that Israel lacked the capability to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2018 and reiterated that Netanyahu was not presented with the “Walls of Jericho” plan until after October 7. “No attempt to rewrite history will change the facts,” the PMO said. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)