Egyptian intelligence official says Cairo warned Netanyahu of upcoming Hamas attacks, but Israel ignored the warning.
By World Israel News Staff
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Monday night on claims his government had received advanced warning of Hamas’ invasion over the weekend and chose to ignore the warnings.
An Egyptian intelligence officer who spoke with The Associated Press said that Cairo had warned Israel about “something big” in the offing, adding that Jerusalem ignored the warning.
Instead, the officer said, Israeli officials focused their concerns on terrorist activities in Judea and Samaria, rather than the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
“We have warned them an explosion of the situation is coming, and very soon, and it would be big. But they underestimated such warnings,” the official said.
Egyptian Intelligence Minister General Abbas Kamel is said to have called Netanyahu ten days before the attack to warn him that Gaza terrorists were planning to do “something unusual, a terrible operation,” Yediot Aharonoth reported.
Netanyahu denied the claim, issuing a statement via the Prime Minister’s Office Monday evening.
The prime minister called the AP report “fake news,” denying Israel had received any intelligence information from Egypt on the matter.
“The report to the effect that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received a message in advance from Egypt is absolutely false.”
“No message in advance has arrived from Egypt and the Prime Minister has neither spoken, nor met, with the head of Egyptian intelligence since the formation of the government, neither directly nor indirectly. This is totally fake news.”
Former Israeli national security adviser Yaakov Amidror, who served under Netanyahu, said Israel had been blindsided by the attack, attributing it to a “major failure” of Israeli intelligence.
“This operation actually proves that the (intelligence) abilities in Gaza were no good,” Amidror told AP.