Sara Netanyahu, the wife of the Israeli prime minister, has claimed an opposition figure was aware of the plan for Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack before it happened.
Sara Netanyahu’s interview was broadcast on Israel’s Channel 14, which is close to the government. 40 percent of Israelis, and 63 percent of voters for the current right-wing coalition, believe that internal treason led to the October 7 attack — the deadliest day in Israel’s history, according to a poll conducted for Channel 13 in August.
“Sara Netanyahu spread a false conspiracy in an attempt to rewrite October 7, turning those who went out to save lives into traitors and those who abandoned Israel’s security into victims,” he said, in a jab at the prime minister. Golan’s party said it strongly condemned Sara Netanyahu’s “vile and deceitful” remarks. The comments triggered swift outrage from the opposition.
In a television interview broadcast on Monday evening, Sara Netanyahu lashed out at Yair Golan, the former deputy military chief of staff who heads Israel’s centre-left Democrats party.
Her remarks, which triggered outrage across Israel’s opposition, highlight the country’s deep political polarisation ahead of close-fought elections on October 27. Israel responded with a massive offensive in Gaza that has killed at least 73,462 people, according to the Palestinian territory’s health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
