Oct. 7 activation of Hamas SIM cards at heart of PMO investigations - report

The question regarding what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knew about the activation of Israeli SIM cards in Gaza – the first indications of a Hamas attack on the night between October 6 and 7 – is at the heart of the slew of investigations into the prime minister’s office that became public over the past week, according to Yediot Ahronot reporter Ronen Bergman.

The three current allegations include the obtaining, alteration, and leaking of classified documents to foreign press to serve the prime minister’s political agenda; tampering with protocols of meetings and phone conversations at the beginning of the war; and blackmailing of a former senior IDF officer in the military secretariat.

Bergman, who also writes for the New York Times, wrote on Monday morning that according to a “series of officials who are familiar with the most relevant intelligence material,” the tampering involved a phone call to the military secretariat with information about the activation of a large number of Israeli SIM cards in the Gaza Strip in the hours ahead of the attack.

According to the report, the SIM cards were the product of an espionage operation intended to enable a warning ahead of a possible attack. Hamas terrorists obtained the Israeli SIM cards in order to use them once they entered Israel since their existing cellphones would lose reception.

The Israeli SIM cards were intended to enable communication between the attackers and for uploading documentation and recordings of the attacks to social media.

The prime minister’s office has repeatedly said, since the first days of the war, that the prime minister was completely surprised by the attack and had received no prior warning.

A possible coverup

However, according to Bergman, the military secretariat that reports directly to Netanyahu may have indeed received an early indication about the SIM cards, indicating that the prime minister’s office did receive an early warning.

This would undercut the prime minister’s claims that he was unaware of anything abnormal.

According to Bergman, the officer at the center of the blackmail case is the one who received the update regarding the SIM cards.

The attempt to blackmail him may therefore be related to the effort to tamper with protocols in order to hide that the prime minister’s office was indeed warned ahead of the Hamas attack.

In response, the prime minister’s office said, “Another total lie that is also part of an unprecedented media witch hunt against the prime minister’s office during wartime, intended to cover up the severe failures of others on the night of October 7.”