The battle of responsibility for the events of October 7 is renewed in Israel, but this time from an angle that goes beyond the question of the hours that preceded the Hamas attack, to affect the policy followed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the course of 15 years, amid accusations that he saw the movement’s strength growing in Gaza, but he chose the policy of containment and postponing the confrontation until the disaster exploded.
In an analytical article by journalist Almog Boker in the Israeli “N12” magazine, the writer asked a direct question regarding the story that Netanyahu recently presented again about the night of October 7, when he asserted that if he had been awakened before the Hamas attack, what had happened would have been completely different.
Netanyahu said this week in an interview with Channel 14 that the October 7 massacre “would not have happened, at least not to the brutal dimensions we woke up to that morning,” adding: “It would have looked completely different.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Booker responded. “We’ll never know.”
But he considered that this is not the issue that Netanyahu should be asked about, but rather the question that the Prime Minister wants to ask because it allows him, according to the writer, to escape from the most important question: Where was the Prime Minister throughout the years preceding that night?
He added that Netanyahu “had not chosen to close his eyes for 15 years, perhaps no one would have needed to wake him up in the middle of the night.”
Booker pointed out that Netanyahu had been prime minister for 15 years before October 7, and during those years he saw Hamas transform into a formidable force, but he chose a policy of containment, through calculated responses and attempts to buy calm, and one round after another of fighting followed by a ceasefire, with the aim of keeping the periods between one round of escalation and another as long as possible.
In the writer’s opinion, “the eyes that remained wide open to the Iranian threat were repeatedly closed when the gaze turned toward the Gaza envelope.”
He considered that Yahya Sinwar, on the other hand, did everything he could to wake up Netanyahu.
He set up positions near the fence facing the homes of the residents of the cover, repeatedly fired rockets, built tunnels, manufactured and smuggled weapons, sent tens of thousands of demonstrators, including armed men, to the border fence on Fridays, burned the fields of the cover area, and opened repeated rounds of escalation.
Booker went on to recall that Sinwar even ordered the launching of a Grad missile towards Ashdod while Netanyahu was there, considering that this constituted an attempt to harm the prime minister.
But the response, according to the writer, remained within the framework of “a proportional response from time to time, and that is all.”
Booker said that Netanyahu saw all of this, but he “chose to close his eyes,” adding that the cries of the heads of local authorities in the Gaza Strip, including figures close to him, also did not succeed in waking him up.
He stressed that the question of responsibility for the years that preceded the events of October 7 is not related to revenge or settling political scores, but rather is necessary for one reason: “to ensure that we do not wake up again to armed men storming our homes.”
Booker then turned to his personal experience of the events of October 7, saying that anyone who did not smell death on that day would not be able to understand the truth of what happened.
He explained that everyone had seen the brutal images and heard the horrific sounds of that morning, but one thing could not be conveyed on television: the smell.
He described it as a “heavy smell of death” that covered the area, and was on the roads, between houses, and inside towns, sticking to clothes, entering cars, and settling in the nose without leaving the person.
He added that it was possible to close the eyes to not see the sights, or cover the ears to not hear the sounds, but there was nowhere to escape from the smell.
He said that even when he left the area for hours, he felt that she was traveling with him, as if she was attached to his body.
After about 3 years, Booker says that the same smell had long disappeared from the place, but it remained inside.
He added that it sometimes returns in the middle of the night without any introduction, sharp and realistic, as if it had never disappeared: “The smell of death.” The smell of October 7.”
In his opinion, anyone who lived that experience understands why the fall of any kite today in the Gaza Strip, whether or not it carries explosive materials, throws residents who chose to return to their homes off balance.
This also explains, according to him, why every warning certificate issued by a female observer that speaks of a return to the “October 6 policy” makes residents look again at the bags they have stored and think that they might have to evacuate again.
Booker noted that area residents are well aware of reassuring phrases such as: “They’re just 13-year-old kids flying kites.”
He believes that these words summarize almost everything that the population fears, because they reflect a return to the mentality that prevailed at the military and political levels before October 7: reducing the extent of the danger, calming down, explaining the reasons for not needing a response or even reporting, and accepting more containment.
He said that these are the same explanations that residents of the area heard in 2018, and that the wound that began when the first incendiary kite fell in a field belonging to Kibbutz Kfar Azza, and then completely opened on October 7, began bleeding immediately again.
Booker revealed that until the warning from the female surveillance soldiers was broadcast, “almost no one took them seriously.”
He added that before the issue was raised on screen and alerts were made about the return of kites, it was treated as if it were not an event worthy of attention.
In June, according to the article, 9 kites were launched towards Israeli forces at the “yellow line,” without the Israeli army issuing any announcement to the public about them, nor was there any response from the political level.
The explanation, according to Booker, was that it did not contain explosive materials.
Here the writer returned to the word “containment,” considering that after October 7 it should shake every Israeli.
He pointed out that Netanyahu said this week on the “Hepatriotic” program that he decided after October 7 to change the approach, explaining that “it is the political level that decides what is right for the security of the state.”
Booker responded by asking: If so, where was the political level when those kites were flown towards the troops? Where was Netanyahu himself? Why did nothing change until the female surveillance soldiers were warned and the case was published in the media?
The writer acknowledged that the Israeli army could be held responsible this time as well, but he recalled what Netanyahu himself said to Ehud Olmert in 2008 after the Second Lebanon War, when he quoted from the Winograd Commission report: “In a democracy, the military level is a tool for implementing the policy decided by the government, first and foremost the prime minister.”
Addressing Netanyahu, Booker added: “These are your words, Mr. Prime Minister.”
Based on this, the writer concluded that preventing a recurrence of what happened does not begin with the hypothetical question of what Netanyahu would have done if he had been woken up in the middle of that night, because the answer to that will never be known, especially since most of those who did not wake him up that night are no longer in their positions.
As for the question that he considered more important, he summed it up in two direct phrases: “Not why they didn’t wake you up in one night, but why you closed your eyes for 15 years.”
Thus, the article returns the battle of responsibility to the hours before the hours of October 7, placing the essence of the debate in the years of politics that preceded the attack, not in a phone call that did not reach Netanyahu in one night.
