Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's former military secretary said the Prime Minister's Office falsified records related to Oct. 7, 2023, including altering the recorded time of a key phone call, Yedioth Ahronoth's Ynet news outlet reported Thursday, citing an interview aired on Channel 12.
"I will give everything I know, leave my impressions and let them understand the reality," Avi Gil said in the interview. "The past few weeks have set me on a different path and signaled to me that I need to come out and tell the truth."
Gil, 54, who served as Netanyahu's military secretary from July 2021 to May 2024, told Israel's Channel 12 that a stenographer in the Prime Minister's Office approached him in January 2024 and said she had been instructed by Netanyahu's chief of staff to change the time of a four-minute call from 6.40 am (0340GMT) local time to 6.29 am (0329 GMT).
"She told me, 'I'm not allowed to change it. The computer shows and says 6:40 to 6:44,'" said Gil, accusing the head of Netanyahu's office of manipulating telephone records.
"Those are facts, and there is no dispute about them," he added.
Gil said he immediately documented the stenographer's account in a handwritten note to the attorney general and recommended that any future commission of inquiry obtain the original recordings rather than rely solely on transcripts, according to the newspaper.
"This is changing a transcript, changing the truth," he said. "Factually, there was an instruction to change the time of a call."
Gil also said Israeli security officials had repeatedly recommended targeted military operations in the Gaza Strip before Oct. 7, but the political leadership rejected that course.
"There were recommendations from time to time to carry out targeted operations in Gaza. Those recommendations were not accepted," he said.
Gil confirmed an earlier report that then-Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar warned Netanyahu in July 2023 that Israel faced the danger of war.
Bar told Netanyahu, "I am giving you a warning of war today. I cannot give you an exact day and hour, but this is the warning," according to the warning previously reported by Yedioth Ahronoth.
Gil stressed that the warning was not specifically about an impending attack from Gaza.
"Was there a specific, focused warning from Gaza? Absolutely not," he said.
Gil also rejected claims that the intelligence available during the preceding night would normally have required Netanyahu to be awakened immediately, saying the information repeatedly described the situation as "routine" and did not indicate immediate urgency.
He also said he could not confirm reports that Netanyahu had received warnings from Egypt or the United Arab Emirates before Oct. 7, noting that he was not in the office on dates linked to the reported Emirati contact.
Netanyahu denied the accusations made by his former military secretary and blamed Gil for failures surrounding Oct. 7.
The dispute comes as campaigning intensifies ahead of Israel's Oct. 27 general election.
Israel's genocidal war in Gaza has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians since October 2023 and injured over 175,000, according to Palestinian figures. Tel Aviv has also destroyed 90% of the enclave's infrastructure.
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in November 2024 on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.
