Netanyahu urged ‘cooling the arenas’ days before Oct. 7, classified summary shows

In one section, Channel 12 reported that Netanyahu instructed officials to promote a civilian arrangement with Hamas and expand the use of humanitarian tools as leverage over Hamas policy.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged a “balanced” approach aimed at “cooling the arenas” and preventing an escalation six days before the October 7 massacre, according to a classified summary from an October 1, 2023, security meeting.

The document dated October 1 was presented by journalist Yaron Avraham on Channel 12’s main evening broadcast on Sunday. It was described as Netanyahu’s written summary of a consultation with Israel’s top security leadership.

Netanyahu did not include the full content of that meeting in his response to the State Comptroller’s Office, Channel 12 reported.

According to the report, the meeting took place at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. It was attended by Mossad Director David Barnea, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) director Ronen Bar, IDF chief of staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi, national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, defense minister Yoav Gallant, strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer, and other senior officials, the report said.

Netanyahu reportedly defined the meeting’s overarching goals as advancing peace with Saudi Arabia, maintaining national and security calm, and neutralizing attempts to trigger an escalation that could endanger diplomatic prospects.

In one section of the summary, Netanyahu instructed officials to promote a civilian arrangement with Hamas, expand the use of humanitarian tools as leverage over Hamas policy, and raise operational readiness for targeted killings that the security establishment had recommended, including against Hamas’s leadership, Channel 12 reported.

Netanyahu’s closing remarks stressed preventing escalation

The report also highlighted Netanyahu’s closing remarks, as shown on air in excerpts from the document.

“The prime minister expressed great appreciation to all security bodies for their work in preserving quiet across all arenas, with emphasis on the holiday period, and stressed that we must act with balance and management for cooling the arenas and preventing escalation while preserving and strengthening Israeli deterrence,” the report said.

Alongside the excerpts, Channel 12 aired sharp criticism attributed to unnamed senior security officials, who accused Netanyahu of causing “irreversible” long-term damage and of selectively extracting partial sentences from lengthy discussions while stripping them of context. They also said the October 1 summary was unusual in its clarity, adding that it had delineated a clear directive.

The disclosure arrived in the middle of an intensified public battle over pre-October 7, 2023, decision-making and the release of selected protocols.

In recent days, the Prime Minister’s Office published intelligence and meeting documents as part of Netanyahu’s response to the state comptroller’s probes into the October 7 massacre, a process that has been tied up in legal and political disputes.

In an interview with Channel 12, Gallant accused Netanyahu of attempting to “engineer the perception” of events by stitching together snippets from long meetings.

Separate reporting has also focused on decisions tied to Hamas’s leadership in the months before the attack. Channel 12 sources claimed Netanyahu had declined multiple opportunities to discuss or approve a targeted killing of then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar before October 7, an allegation the Prime Minister’s Office rejected, The Jerusalem Post reported in January.

Israeli investigations into the October 7 massacre have repeatedly returned to the “conception” that Hamas was deterred and could be managed.

In coverage of lessons learned, the Post has reported senior assessments, describing how deeply those assumptions had shaped readiness and decision-making in the period leading up to the attack, even as senior officials later acknowledged the failure to challenge that view.