Netanyahu ‘missed chance’ to end Hamas financially - ex-Mossad official
Head of Economic Warfare Udi Levy claimed that PM Netanyahu failed to act on intelligence which could have prevented the October 7th attack and limited Hamas's capabilities.
Prime Minister Netanyahu could have prevented Hamas’s October 7 terror attack by cutting the terror group’s funding supply, Mossad’s former Head of Economic Warfare Udi Levy told the BBC on Monday.
Levy told the BBC that Netanyahu failed to act on intelligence, which would have disrupted Hamas’s military capabilities. He continued to tell the source that Hamas could have been destroyed "by using only financial tools.”
Speaking on Hamas’s October 7 terror attack, Levy confirmed his belief that the infiltration would not have damaged Israel to the extent it had if intelligence had been acted upon.
“There is a very good chance that... we would [have] prevent[ed] a lot of the money" that had gone into Gaza, and that "the monster that Hamas built probably [wouldn't be] like the same monster that we faced on October 7th," Levy told the BBC.
If Netanyahu had followed the advice, Levy said that Hamas would have needed "billions, not millions" of dollars to build its expansive network of terror tunnels under the Gaza Strip.
Where did Hamas's money come from?
Speaking on a specific incident, Levy pointed to a 2014 discovery where Netanyahu failed to act on intelligence, which found an alleged multi-million-dollar investment portfolio controlled by Hamas and managed out of Turkey.
Some 40 companies across the Middle East and North Africa were said to be involved in the portfolio. These countries included Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan, Egypt and Turkey.
Hamas was said to have invested in a diverse portfolio, from road construction, pharmaceuticals, and medical equipment to tourism, mining, gold prospecting, and luxury real estate projects.
"We spoke about Qatar and Iran as the main sponsors," Levy told the source of his conversations with Netanyahu. "Turkey is even, in some aspect, more important because it is a critical focal point for Hamas to manage [its] financial infrastructure."
"The Qataris [had] a special envoy that came every month, with a private jet to Rafah with a suitcase, enter to Gaza, gave it to Hamas, say hello and go back, that's it," Levy claimed.
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