After 3 years of silence: PM's military Secretary reveals calls on morning of massacre

Just 11 minutes separated two telephone conversations that Maj. Gen. (res.) Avi Gil held with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the morning of October 7. The first call took place at 6:29 a.m., and the second at 6:40 a.m. Now, three years after the massacre, the former military secretary to the Prime Minister has revealed in an interview with Israel Hayom that, according to him, an attempt was made within Netanyahu's office to change the time of the first call in the official records. Gil believes the attempt may have been motivated by a desire to portray Netanyahu as having functioned effectively from the very first moments of the attack, or perhaps even to establish a much more serious allegation. "It's possible that they were already working back then on the narrative we're seeing today, that the Prime Minister was the only one functioning when the chaos began, because the fact is that he issued all the instructions from the very first second. That's a serious scenario, but a plausible one. There's another scenario that's extremely serious," Gil said. The second scenario Gil described concerns the intelligence information he received during those 11 minutes. According to him, during the second conversation, he passed information to Netanyahu that he had not possessed during the first. Changing the time of the call could, he argued, create the false impression that the information had been known earlier. "After all, 11 minutes passed between the first call and the second, during which I received intelligence and information that I didn't have during the first call, intelligence and information that I conveyed to the Prime Minister during the second call. And if they prove that this intelligence and information already existed at 6:29 a.m., that would mean someone already knew at that point what was going to happen, meaning there was a betrayal." Gil is not asserting that a betrayal occurred, but rather raising the possibility that altering the records was intended to support such a narrative. His remarks carry particular significance given his role at the time: He was the person who woke Netanyahu on the morning of the massacre and informed him that war had broken out, and he was involved in conveying security information to the Prime Minister during the first hours of the attack. For three years, Gil chose not to speak publicly about the events. He served as military secretary to three prime ministers - Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid, and Benjamin Netanyahu - and closely witnessed the period preceding the war, the warnings conveyed to the political leadership, and the first months of the fighting. According to Gil, throughout that period he waited for the establishment of a state commission of inquiry, before which he could present everything he had witnessed and documented in real time. However, as time passed and no commission was established, he decided to break his silence. He said his decision was also influenced by appeals from bereaved families and former hostages who asked him to share what he knew. "There are too many lies in the air, and the public deserves to know the truth. Three years have passed since October 7, and two years since I retired from the IDF. I hoped that a state commission of inquiry would be established to investigate everything, and unfortunately that isn't happening, and it's doubtful whether it ever will. I have no personal interest, only the good of the country." One of the central issues Gil discussed concerns the conduct of the Prime Minister's Office in the weeks and months following the outbreak of the war. According to Gil, approximately two weeks after October 7, he noticed that people close to Netanyahu were engaged in what he described as "disproportionate collection of materials." This conduct raised concerns about how official records of discussions and conversations were being handled. As a result, he approached the Attorney General and asked her to clarify the rules governing the use of transcripts. "I told her that we were at war, that I wasn't looking for people to blame, and that I didn't want this to become personal. I asked her to clarify the guidelines on what was and wasn't permitted when handling transcripts. And that's what happened." Three months later, Gil said, he discovered that his concerns had not been merely theoretical. A stenographer working in the Prime Minister's Office informed him that Netanyahu's chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, had demanded that she change the recorded time of Gil's conversation with the Prime Minister on the morning of October 7. Gil considered this a criminal act and immediately reported it. He sharply criticized the conduct attributed to Braverman. "First of all, this is a criminal pattern of behavior by people who think they're allowed to do anything, and the chief of staff behaved like someone who was allowed to do anything," he said. For Gil, the concern extends beyond a single conversation or an isolated alteration of a timestamp. He raised a broader question about the reliability of official records of discussions held in the Prime Minister's Office and warned that investigators should not rely solely on the documents and transcripts provided thus far. "Any commission of inquiry that is established must insist on receiving the complete recordings, not the transcripts, because I don't know what has been changed. I would also expect the State Comptroller to do that, rather than rely on excerpts of transcripts provided to him by the Prime Minister." Gil also expressed skepticism about the document Netanyahu submitted to the State Comptroller, arguing that it did not reflect the full sequence of events. "The document submitted to the State Comptroller does not reflect what really happened. It's part of the truth, but not the whole truth." In the interview, Gil also addressed warnings conveyed to Netanyahu in the period leading up to the war and proposals presented to him to eliminate Hamas leaders. However, one of the most intriguing details in his remarks concerns Egypt and a brief visit to Israel by an Egyptian intelligence aircraft. Asked whether there had been an advance warning from Egypt, Gil clarified that he was not aware of any such warning. Nevertheless, he pointed to an incident that he believes requires a thorough investigation. "I'm not aware of one, but let's talk about facts. An Egyptian intelligence aircraft landed in Israel and was here for a little more than 60 minutes. That's a fact. An aircraft like that doesn't just show up for no reason." Gil could not say who arrived aboard the aircraft or what the purpose of the visit was, but he believes the circumstances raise serious questions. According to him, someone may have arrived for a meeting with an Israeli official, or a message or information may have been delivered that should have been brought to the attention of the relevant authorities. "Either someone arrived on it to meet someone, or someone arrived on it to deliver something - a message, an envelope. Someone met someone, or received something, and didn't report it. And if that happened, and it appears that it did, it should have been reported. And whoever met someone or received something is still concealing it today." Despite the seriousness of his remarks, Gil did not present evidence that the aircraft carried a warning about the attack or that a meeting took place during which such information was conveyed. He is calling for an investigation into who was involved in the visit, what its purpose was, and why, according to him, it was not properly reported. The Likud party strongly rejected Gil's remarks, claiming that the interview was part of a political attack against the Prime Minister. "This interview is part of the false and political propaganda campaign against Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Likud, aimed at bringing down the right-wing government and bringing to power a left-wing government that will establish a Palestinian state," the party stated. In its response, Likud claimed that Netanyahu had received no advance warning of the Hamas attack from the Gaza Strip and that the heads of the security establishment had repeatedly presented him with assessments that Hamas was deterred and interested in maintaining an arrangement with Israel. Likud further claimed that during the night preceding the attack, certain officials became aware of suspicious signs but did not update the Prime Minister or convey warnings to those who could have prepared for the attack. "If Prime Minister Netanyahu had been updated in real time, everything would have looked different," the party stated.