Netanyahu's Oct. 7 phone call to IDF chief took place three hours after attack began - report

Earlier this week, Netanyahu claimed that IDF officers deliberately did not wake him for over an hour because they knew he would prevent the massacre.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not speak to then-IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi on October 7 until three hours after the Hamas attacks began, KAN News reported on Thursday.

According to the report, Netanyahu only spoke to Halevi at 9:45 a.m. that day during the situational assessment, despite receiving two separate phone calls about the ongoing terrorist attack at 6:29 a.m. and 6:40 a.m., and the prime minister did not ask to speak with Halevi during or immediately after either call.

The report follows comments by Sara Netanyahu that the Democratic Party chief, Yair Golan, had prior knowledge of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack in which over 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered and that launched the war that continues to this day.

"You claim to have been a fighter on October 7," said Sara Netanyahu. "You were there early in the morning, dressed and ready. At a very early hour, when others did not know, such as the prime minister."

Later, in an Instagram post, the prime minister claimed that IDF officers deliberately did not wake him for over an hour because they knew he would prevent the massacre.

Netanyahu: Everything would have been different 'if they had woken me'

"They were afraid that if they woke the prime minister, I would activate the air force, and I would wake the entire IDF, and I would not let anyone get close to the fences - because we would kill them immediately," he claimed.

"If they had woken me, everything would have looked different," he added.