"A selection of intelligence documents, which shed light on Israel's strategic blindness leading up to the October 7 massacre, was published on Thursday by the Prime Minister's Office.
Some of the documents were also read aloud during the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee meeting on Thursday.
The documents, spanning from February 2023 to an hour before the attack, indicate that Israel's defense echelon misread Hamas’s intentions, characterizing the terror group as deterred and seeking long-term economic arrangements.The release of these documents by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comes to reinforce his narrative of a systemic failure that seemingly crossed all branches of the security establishment, as he refuses to establish a commission of inquiry into the October 7 massacre.
Members of the inquiry would be chosen by the Supreme Court's president and granted full access to the documents and protocols, unlike senior security establishment officials, who currently have no access to them.One of the documents is a summary of a high-level security assessment held on September 27, 2023, just ten days before the massacre. According to the document, representatives from Military Intelligence (Aman) told Netanyahu that Hamas’s policy was one of "controlled pressure" meant to improve economic conditions in Gaza.
"Their understanding is that they do not want to reach an escalation," the representatives stated, according to the transcript, which also presented former Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) director Ronen Bar as framing the situation as Hamas's "partial satisfaction."
According to the document, he also noted that the group "very much does not want to enter a round of fighting."Per the same transcript, former defense minister Yoav Gallant seemed to support moving toward a "long-term arrangement" with the terror organization.
"Hamas is signaling a desire for a long-term arrangement... my recommendation is to move forward on the arrangement path... to strive for long-term quiet," Gallant said, according to the document, and that his assessment was that Hamas "does not want" a war.
The documents also seem to present the belief that Israel's internal political divisions, which peaked in 2023 over the judicial reform, acted as a "restraining factor" for Hamas.
A military intelligence report published by the PMO from September 14, 2023, argued that Hamas viewed Israel as "unpredictable and dangerous" due to the internal situation, which supposedly justified Hamas’s strategy of "preserving the quiet."A summary from October 3, 2023, four days before the attack, claimed that "Hamas in the Gaza Strip continues to grow stronger, but at a moderate slope," and concluded that "the Palestinians will not be the driving force behind a multi-front campaign."
A February 2023 Shin Bet report noted that Hamas was investing in "force multipliers" to bypass the border fence, yet concluded that the group's "readiness for a raid" had remained "medium" and unchanged since 2021.
At 5:15 a.m. on October 7, just over an hour before the first rockets were launched and thousands of terrorists breached the Gaza border fence, the reports show that Bar conducted a situational assessment and said that the "chance of a broad campaign is low" due to a reported lack of intelligence indicators.
According to the published documents, the "leading assumption" among security officials at that hour was that Hamas was afraid of Israeli offensive activity.
The directive issued at dawn on October 7 was to maintain "medium readiness" covertly, so as not to create a "miscalculation" that might provoke Hamas, according to the transcripts.
In addition, Netanyahu claimed that the original documents allegedly contained no mention of informing his office of the overnight developments, and that any mention of such a thing was added after the fact."
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-885798
"Conspiracy theories have swirled around Jeffrey Epstein for years — that he worked for the Mossad, that he was “Israel’s greatest ally,” that his crimes were inspired by the Talmud.
The latest tranche of files from Epstein’s case does not confirm the allegations, but has still fueled antisemitic and anti-Israel hostility from the left and from the right...The Epstein files are documents compiled by investigators on the late sexual predator and financier since he was arrested in 2005 for abusing girls. The documents shed light on Epstein’s sprawling, global network of powerful acquaintances.
There are millions of documents in the files, many unrelated to sex trafficking, and parsing the material is tedious and time-consuming. The documents are shorn of context, names are redacted, there are duplicates, and due to formatting, some documents do not respond to search terms. Investigators record tips they receive, whether they are accurate or not, and the veracity of many claims in the files is impossible to verify.
The overwhelming volume of material means that, while it is difficult to process the documents into coherent and accurate narratives, there is plenty to cherry-pick and blast out on social media. That, coupled with the difficulty of disproving a negative, makes the files fertile ground for conspiracies.
Take the widespread allegation that Epstein was an Israeli intelligence agent from figures like Tucker Carlson, who said at a summit last year that Epstein was working for a “foreign government.”No one’s allowed to say that foreign government is Israel,” Carlson said, leaning into tropes about both hidden Jewish power and Jewish control of the media.
The Mossad is mentioned repeatedly in the files, but so is the CIA, the UK’s intelligence services, and the KGB. Nearly all mentions of the agencies are news reports that Epstein received via email. Israel is mentioned in thousands of documents, but fewer times than countries including Russia, China, Canada and France.
In one email, after being invited to Israel, Epstein rejected the invite, saying, “I do not like Israel. AT ALL.”
The Mossad is mentioned in some of Epstein’s personal correspondence, without evidence that he worked for the intelligence agency.
Epstein was friendly with former prime minister Ehud Barak, meeting with him dozens of times, which was known years ago. In 2018, while discussing a meeting via email, Epstein told Barak, “You should make clear that I don’t work for Mossad,” followed by a smiley face. The first rumors of Epstein’s connections to Israeli intelligence had started at around the same time.
In 2017, Barak asked Epstein if another acquaintance “got to the Mossad guys through you?” Later, Epstein, possibly confused, asked Barak if he had helped facilitate work with former Mossad agents. Barak told Epstein to call him, but didn’t answer his phone.
An audio recording of a conversation between Epstein and Barak that was more than three hours long stood out for its banality. The private conversation did not mention the Mossad. In addition to Epstein’s ties with Barak, he knew other world leaders such as US President Donald Trump, the UK’s former Prince Andrew, and harsh critics of Israel like Noam Chomsky.
Other allegations in the files are from unknown sources and do not provide evidence.
A sender named Mark Iverson said in 2021, after Epstein’s death, that he suspected Epstein, as well as his partner Ghislaine Maxwell and her father Robert, “were all Mossad agents.” His evidence was Robert Maxwell’s funeral in Israel. The email’s recipient was redacted.
Another email, citing an anonymous tipster to the FBI, said the source had been “convinced that Epstein was a co-opted Mossad agent,” without any further information.
Both allegations were presented as suspicions, indicating the anonymous sources did not have actual evidence. It’s possible the accusers were animated by the same antisemitic conspiracies about conniving Jews as the commentators propagating the allegations after the files’ release.
That’s it for Mossad in the millions of files. It’s not impossible that Epstein had ties to Israeli intelligence, but amid the mountains of material, the evidence isn’t there.There are also Epstein files that say the Earth was once flat, refer to an alien abduction, and that humans could control the weather “with the super lasers.”
Like previous releases of files from the case, the tranche put out this week still inspired another round of Mossad conspiracies, from Iranian state media to leftist Gen Z influencers.
The statements highlighted the so-called horseshoe theory of antisemitism, which posits that the political spectrum is not a straight line, but a near-circle, with the far-left and far-right converging, particularly when it comes to Jews and Israel.
Carlson is an exemplar of the theory, as his far-right hostility to Israel merges with the views of leftist guests such as the UN special rapporteur for the Palestinians Francesca Albanese and Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s.
Carlson hosted the progressive activist Cenk Uygur on his show on Friday to discuss “Epstein, JFK, and 9-11 Files,” tying all three incidents to Israel, as well as the Iraq war.
“There’s just no question about it. He is definitely intelligence, and in every turn, he’s looking to help one country and it’s Israel,” Uygur said of Epstein.
“You get the sense that it reveals the superstructure beneath. It gives you a glimpse into how power is exercised globally,” Carlson said."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/no-the-epstein-files-dont-show-that-he-worked-for-mossad/
"The United Arab Emirates has drafted plans to build a compound to house thousands of displaced Palestinians in a part of south Gaza under Israeli military control, according to a map seen by Reuters and people briefed on the plans.
The planning map shows where the “UAE Temporary Emirates Housing Complex” would be constructed near Rafah, once a city of a quarter million people but now almost completely destroyed and depopulated by Israeli forces.
An Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel that the UAE has not made a final decision on whether to fund the pilot housing project in Rafah..."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/map-shows-uae-planned-compound-for-palestinians-in-israeli-held-south-gaza/
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned behind closed doors that Israel must closely monitor the growing strength of the Egyptian military, citing sensitivities in relations with Israel's southern neighbor.During a classified discussion of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Netanyahu said the Egyptian military was "building up" and that Israel needed to ensure the buildup did not go too far.
"The Egyptian military is growing stronger and this needs to be monitored. We have a relationship with Egypt, but we must prevent an excessive buildup," Netanyahu said.
Despite the tensions, Israel and Egypt signed a $35 billion gas deal last December. The deal was pushed by the US, and the same frictions reportedly delayed its finalization.
Meanwhile, as part of the investigation known as QatarGate, suspicions have emerged that messages originating in Qatar and aimed at smearing Egypt were also disseminated by advisers to the prime minister who are suspects in the affair."
https://www.israelhayom.com/2026/02/05/netanyahu-we-must-prevent-the-egyptian-military-from-becoming-too-strong/
"Arab diplomatic sources say the regime in Tehran is expected to announce major changes to Iran's security apparatus in the near future, according to a report published Thursday in the Persian Gulf..."
https://www.israelhayom.com/2026/02/05/report-iran-considers-shake-up-of-revolutionary-guards-command/
