Netanyahu responds to Ronen Bar: “You had my phone number.”

Tel Aviv - Ofoq News - Today, Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the accusations of the former head of the Israeli General Security Agency (Shin Bet), Ronen Bar, denying that he did not have a way to reach him by phone on the night of October 7, 2023.

Netanyahu said in a statement issued by him: “Ronen Bar, who detected the warning indicators on the night of October 7 and did not contact me, says today that he did not have my phone number. Ronen, are you serious? You had my red phone number, and you could have called me immediately, as all heads of the security services do.”

He added: "Shin Bet guards, your subordinates who are with me around the clock, could have reached me within minutes. How many lives could we have saved if you had called in time."

Netanyahu's response came following a defamation lawsuit worth 3 million shekels, which Bar filed earlier Wednesday against the prime minister, against the backdrop of a post in which Netanyahu accused the former Shin Bet chief of committing "failures and crimes" that led to the October 7 attack.

In the lawsuit, Barr said that he proposed assassinating former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, but Netanyahu opposed the move for fear that he himself would be assassinated in response.

Bar: Communication with Netanyahu was through the military secretariat

Barr indicated in his lawsuit that warnings were conveyed to the Prime Minister’s Military Secretariat office as early as 3 a.m. on the night of October 7, and a briefing conversation took place between the head of Barr’s office and Netanyahu’s military secretary, Avi Gil, at 6:15 a.m.

Bar added that Netanyahu refused to provide him with his personal phone number, and that the only channel of communication between them was through the Prime Minister’s military secretariat.

These accusations and mutual responses come within the framework of the judicial dispute between Netanyahu and Bar regarding responsibility for the failures that preceded the attack on October 7, 2023.