Netanyahu unaware of who Egyptian spy chief met days before Oct. 7 massacre

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he has no idea who Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel met with days before the October 7 massacre during an interview with Israeli public broadcaster KAN News on Wednesday evening.

Additionally, Netanyahu said that it is clear that Israel has a deep state. "It's not even a question," he stated.

"Before October 7, we had an army with a state. Now we have a state with an army," Netanyahu added.

Netanyahu also commented that a unity government could become a "government of paralysis."

Netanyahu spoke to Army Radio earlier on Wednesday, saying that Intelligence failures surrounding the October 7 massacre should not automatically lead to a premier's dismissal.

Netanyahu compared Israel's intelligence failures to those preceding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, arguing that those disasters had not automatically led to the removal of the countries' political leaders.

The prime minister also responded to former Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) Ronen Bar's defamation lawsuit. Bar said that Netanyahu was unreachable on the morning of October 7, 2023, because "unlike previous prime ministers, he never provided the plaintiff with his personal telephone number."

The prime minister struck back at Bar on Wednesday, saying, "Ronen Bar, who saw the warning signs on the night of October 7 and didn't call me, says today that he didn't have my phone number. Ronen, are you serious? After all, you had my red phone number and could have called me immediately, as all heads of the security establishment do."

"The Shin Bet security detail, your subordinates who are with me 24/7, could have reached me within minutes. How many lives could we have saved if only you had called on time?" Netanyahu added.