TEL AVIV, September 28. /TASS/. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly rejected reports that Egypt had warned Israel beforehand that Hamas was plotting an attack on the Israeli territory, and gave instructions to file a defamation lawsuit against its authors.

The Wall Street Journal previously reported, citing sources, that Egypt had warned Israel multiple times about an impending attack by Hamas. One such warning was conveyed to Israel by Abbas Kamel who at the time headed the Egyptian General Intelligence Service.

"In the months preceding October 7, Prime Minister Netanyahu neither met nor spoke with Abbas Kamel, then head of Egypt’s General Intelligence Service. No Israeli intelligence official conveyed such a warning to the Prime Minister," the office of the Israeli premier said in a statement.

"The prime minister gave instructions to file a defamation lawsuit on the subject," the statement reads.

Three weeks ago, Netanyahu directed his legal team to file a defamation lawsuit against the Haaretz newspaper, which claimed that ten days prior to the October 7 attack, Netanyahu got a call from UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who warned him that Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza, was plotting a large-scale attack on Israel.

Netanyahu maintains that a joint audit of his call logs, conducted by the Prime Minister’s Office, the National Security Council and the military secretariat, found no record of such a call in the reported period.

On October 7, 2023, armed members of Hamas and other Palestinian groups entered Israel from Gaza, killing residents of border communities and taking about 250 people hostage. Hamas described its attack as retaliation for the aggressive actions taken by Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel imposed a total blockade on the Gaza Strip and launched air strikes on Gaza, as well as parts of Lebanon and Syria, before beginning a ground operation in the Palestinian enclave. The active phase of the operation continued intermittently for nearly two years.

The detailed circumstances of the October 7, 2023 attack remain unclarified by the Israeli authorities, and a state commission of inquiry into the leadership’s response has not been convened to date.