Emergency Response to Hamas Attack

We speak on the red phone.

What does he tell you?

He reports— he updates me that overnight there are signs

of something suspicious, signs,

and senior figures going underground, among other things.

But alongside them, there are also signs, what we call dampening or cooling indicators,

or indications that this is not the case. Among them, that this has been done before,

practiced in Hamas drills, and the two important things

are the—the thought

that—

there are routine patterns in Hamas,

and more importantly, the time sensitivity, the urgency, the immediacy

is not immediate.

He says they will convene later for a series of situation assessments and find out what

the story is. As a precaution,

the Shin Bet chief instructed, uh, an operational team, what's called Team

Tequila, to be sent south.

Did it cross your mind that maybe I should inform the prime minister that something is happening?

Certainly.

What time?

In the call, 6:22, 6:23, we spoke for about four or five minutes on the red phone.

My phone is blowing up with numerous alerts,

uh, about launches toward the south.

6:29 a.m.

6:29 a.m.

And then you make the first call to the prime minister.

I hang up, uh, the call and phone the prime minister.

What do you tell him?

On WhatsApp.

What do you tell him?

First of all, I wake him up. I need to— make sure he's awake.

I don't know whether he's awake or not.

I wake him up,

Um, and I tell him, uh, Prime Minister, Hamas has launched widespread fire.

Very much. I'm linking this to intelligence I received ten

minutes earlier by phone.

I assess that Hamas has launched a large-scale surprise attack.

I'm gathering data, and I'll call you on the red phone as soon as I have it.

What does the prime minister say to you?

I don't remember. I didn't expect him to answer. The purpose of the call was to inform the prime minister there was

an incident. It doesn't matter whether it was small or large, to inform him there was an incident

and make sure that we, uh, that he would be ready for a red-phone call.

No instructions were given by him at this stage. This was an informational situational-assessment call from your end.

This was a call from me to update him and get him onto a secure phone, a red phone.

Wake him up, tell him this call is taking place at 6:41,

twelve minutes later.

At 6:40, we're connected again on the red phone.

What do you say? What does he answer?

I tell the prime minister,

"We're at war."

The scale of the fire, the intensity

of the fire, plus the intelligence I received minutes before Hamas launched the attack,

made it clear to me that this was a war. The IDF, doesn't use a red phone.

He needs to be directed to a red phone, and rightly so.

You don't just call a prime minister on the red phone.

He did.

He gives several directives.

Uh, the directives are to call up reservists

and eliminate the, uh—

eliminate the senior officials.

The senior officials.

By the way, weren't the immediate directives supposed, first and foremost,

to—stop the bleeding, protect

the communities?

I...

very much hope, very much hope we don't need

a prime minister in any country to direct an army

that understands such a blow requires calling up reservists.

What you're saying, in other words, is that the system operated on its own before it received the instruction.

A system must operate on its own before it receives the instruction and after it

Copy that.

In this specific case, because the prime minister comes and says, “I instructed,”

“I’m the only one giving instructions.”

Mr. Prime Minister, I’m not giving a grade.