Report Says Egypt Warned Israel Before Oct. 7 Attack; Netanyahu Rejects Claim

A report published by the U.S. magazine The Atlantic claims that Egypt warned Israel in the days before the October 7, 2023 attack that Hamas was preparing for a large-scale assault, according to a summary of the report carried by Deutsche Welle's Arabic service.

The report states that Egyptian officials conveyed concerns to their Israeli counterparts about Hamas mobilizing for a major operation ahead of the attack that killed hundreds of Israelis and triggered the war in Gaza. The precise channels used, the timing of any warning, and the level of detail it is said to have contained have not been independently verified.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly rejected the report's central claim that Israel received such a warning and failed to act on it. He has previously maintained that Israeli intelligence and security agencies, not the political leadership, bore responsibility for assessing threat warnings ahead of October 7.

The question of what warnings Israel received before the attack, and how they were handled, has been a recurring source of domestic controversy in Israel, with several official inquiries examining intelligence and military failures surrounding that day. Egypt has previously denied or downplayed similar reports in the past.

Neither the Egyptian nor Israeli governments have released official documentation confirming or denying the specifics described in the report.