Netanyahu rejected plan to assassinate Hamas chief days before Oct. 7 invasion – report

Israeli prime minister denies report that top security official lobbied Netanyahu to approve plan to assassinate Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas forces in Gaza, less than a week before the October 7th invasion.

By World Israel News Staff

A top Israeli security official presented Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a plan to assassinate the senior Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip just days before the October 7th, 2023 invasion, a report by Israel’s Channel 12 claims.

According to the report Saturday night, on October 1st, 2023, Ronen Bar, chief of the Shin Bet internal security agency, lobbied Netanyahu to approve the targeted assassination of Yahya Sinwar, the de facto ruler of the Gaza Strip and mastermind of the invasion of Israel, launched just six days after the plan was reportedly proposed to Netanyahu.

Netanyahu is said to have ignored Bar’s request to green-light the targeted killing.

Channel 12 claimed that Saturday’s report was based on material collected by the Shin Bet from its own probe into the security failures ahead of and during the October 7th invasion.

Among other things, the probe reportedly found that the Shin Bet underestimated the capabilities of Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force, which spearheaded the October 7th invasion. As such, the agency did not address warnings of an impending invasion.

However, the report states, despite the agency’s failure to properly assess the threat posed by the Nukhba Force in the days and hours leading up to the invasion, successive heads of the Shin Bet are said to have warned of Hamas’s growing military capabilities and urged the government to carry out targeted killings of senior Hamas officials in Gaza, including Sinwar and Muhammed Deif, chief of Hamas’s military wing.

Since September of 2023, according the report, the Shin Bet deliberated on steps to increase overall security readiness vis-a-vis a possible campaign in Gaza.

On October 1st, during an operational meeting with senior security officials, Bar reportedly advised Netanyahu to approve the Shin Bet’s plan to assassinate Sinwar.

The Prime Minister’s Office, however, vociferously denied the claim, which it denounced as a “complete lie.”

“The truth is the exact opposite. On the 1st of October 2023, Prime Minister Netanyahu held a situational assessment on the subject of Gaza, during which the Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar recommended that [Israel] grant Hamas benefits to [Gaza] civilians in exchange for quiet.

“Bar even said that targeted killings should be avoided in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon in order to prevent another round of [fighting] in Gaza,” the PMO said.

The PMO added that two days later, on October 3rd, Bar argued that Hamas was working to avoid a conflict with Israel, claiming that it was possible to maintain long-term stability between Israel and Gaza.

Saturday night’s report and the PMO’s response come amid reports that Netanyahu is planning to replace Bar as the Shin Bet chief – a claim the PMO has denied.

Critics of the prime minister have linked his alleged plan to fire Bar after the Shin Bet completes its ongoing probe of the October 7th security failures to the agency’s investigation into ties between several Netanyahu aides in the Prime Minister’s Office and the Qatari government.

According to recent reports, several public relations officials from the PMO were paid by Doha to improve Qatar’s image in Israel.