Israeli security chiefs cast doubt on Netanyahu's account of Egyptian spy chief's secret visit

Israeli security chiefs who served before the October 7 massacre have no knowledge of a visit to Israel by Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel. A senior security official told ynet on Wednesday evening that, had such a visit taken place, the security establishment would have had to know about it in real time. "We looked into it thoroughly afterward and have no knowledge of such a visit. There is serious doubt that he was ever in Israel. If Netanyahu knows he was here, he should say whom he met with," the security source said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged Tuesday for the first time that Kamel, one of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's closest associates, had landed in Israel a week and a half before the massacre. In an interview with Channel 14, Netanyahu said Kamel "did not meet with me because I was attending a memorial ceremony for fallen IDF soldiers." According to published reports, Kamel had warned at the time of "a major attack being planned by Hamas." Netanyahu claimed Tuesday that he did not know whom Kamel had met with in Israel during the purported secret visit. "Egypt's intelligence minister was here. He spent 59 minutes on the ground. I'm turning to the security and law enforcement authorities — I want to know whom he met. Someone who met with him is trying to pin this on me," he said. According to a report by Kan News, the Egyptian flight that landed in Israel on September 26, 2023, carried two businessmen, not the Egyptian intelligence chief. The aircraft returned to Cairo without passengers. The report said the aircraft was a business jet operated by an Egyptian charter company called Smart Aviation. It landed in Israel shortly before 10 a.m. and departed for Cairo around 11 a.m., after spending just over an hour on the ground. According to the report, several sources with direct knowledge of the flight said the passengers entered Israel through the Fattal Terminal at Ben Gurion Airport on a routine business flight returning from Egypt. The aircraft received ground services from QAS at the airport and departed for Egypt without passengers. The flight was not registered as an official or security-related flight. Kan also reported that the passengers' names are known to the relevant authorities. However, protecting passengers' identities is a top priority in the business aviation industry, meaning even those authorities cannot comment on who was aboard the aircraft. Egyptian warnings: 'Something unusual' Two days after the October 7 massacre, ynet's Smadar Perry reported, following an Associated Press report about an Egyptian warning, that Kamel had conveyed a message to Netanyahu's office warning of "something unusual, a massive operation" about to be launched from Gaza. The Prime Minister's Office denied the report. Last month, the American magazine The Atlantic revealed that Kamel had made a brief visit to Israel on September 26, during which he "warned that Hamas was preparing a major attack and urged Israel to introduce economic measures to ease conditions and prevent an escalation." According to the magazine's investigation, a chartered Cessna aircraft linked to Egyptian intelligence services landed at Ben Gurion Airport and remained in Israel for just 67 minutes before returning to Cairo. A former Israeli official told the magazine that the Egyptian intelligence chief's unusually brief visit should have been enough to convey the urgency of his warning. "The messenger himself was the message," the official said. About two hours after the Egyptian aircraft landed, Netanyahu attended a ceremony in Jerusalem marking the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. "As a central lesson from that war, we do not dismiss any threat," Netanyahu said at the time. The Wall Street Journal separately revealed that Kamel had called Netanyahu in early October 2023 to warn him of an impending attack from the Gaza Strip, after two previous Egyptian warnings had gone unheeded. "Kamel began to grow concerned," the newspaper reported, further corroborating Smadar Perry's reporting in ynet and Yedioth Ahronoth just days after the massacre about an Egyptian warning.