A letter with a serious warning of a possibly imminent attack on Israel was slated to be sent to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the members of the political-security cabinet immediately after Simchas Torah, Kan News reported on Tuesday evening.

Brig-Gen. Amit S’ar, a senior official in the IDF Intelligence Directorate, warned in the letter that according to intelligence information, Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah were preparing for a major attack on the Jewish state and the government must prepare for it.

Sa’ar wrote that Israel’s enemies’ perception of the IDF’s lack of readiness for war along with the internal strife in the country led them to believe that the opportunity was ripe for an attack. He also wrote that senior Iranian officials were urging Hamas to perpetrate a devastating attack on Israel.

IDF Chief of Staff Hertzi Halevi and the head of the Intelligence Directorate read the letter and approved it to be sent to the prime minister. But it was too late – the attack occurred on October 7th and the letter was never sent.

According to a Maariv report, the Intelligence Directorate had previously sent four letters of warning about a possible attack to senior IDF officials in 2023 but the letters were not shared with the prime minister or senior political officials.

The report comes after a previous Maariv report revealing that Israel was aware of the full Hamas plan to infiltrate Gaza border communities about a year and a half before the October 7th attack. The report says that Israeli intelligence officials received intelligence information about the plan in April 2022 and assigned it to a female officer in Unit 8300 named “V.” to oversee it.

V. translated the plan from Arabic into Hebrew, naming it “Walls of Jericho” and monitored the intelligence information from Gaza, including recordings of its tactical communication networks.

A year later, in May 2023, Hamas carried out a massive training exercise next to the security fence on the border, during which they practiced everything written in the “Walls of Jericho” plan – including the paragliders and infiltration via sea and land with motorcycles and trucks.

V. sent urgent emails to her commanders in the Southern Command. She wrote that everything she’s seeing on the border corresponds with what is written in the Walls of Jericho plan, adding that she is hearing verses being quoted from the Koran on the networks that she never heard before. She did research and discovered that the new verses are the ones said before going out to war. However, all her warnings were to no avail – her superiors repeatedly dismissed her and scoffed at her fears.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)