Former defense minister Avigdor Liberman's warning in 2016 of a Hamas attack like Israel experienced on October 7 was dismissed immediately by the cabinet, he told Reshet Bet on Wednesday.
In December, 2016, Liberman handed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a document warning of a large-scale Hamas attack in Israel.
"Hamas intends on moving the next conflict to Israel's territory by getting significant numbers of well-trained forces in Israel's territory, occupying an Israeli town (or even a number of towns), and taking the residents hostage," the document read. "Dismissing a decision to 'surprise attack' Hamas would be a severe error with far-reaching consequences which could be similar to the results of the Yom Kippur War."
Liberman said that he personally handed it to Netanyahu and that then IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot saw it too but that it was not taken seriously.
"The cabinet debated the document," he said. "Unfortunately, it was dismissed. I always said this was a ticking time bomb and we needed to act."
Liberman: inspections of aid trucks are inadequate
He also warned that despite assurances that Israel is inspecting humanitarian aid that is going into Gaza, it cannot be effective because the trucks are inspected on the Israeli side. The trucks then drive for more than an hour through Egypt before entering Gaza through the Rafiah checkpoint where Israel cannot check them.
Liberman's document is not the only indication that the government and defense system knew that Hamas was capable of or planning to carry out an attack of that calibre.
Netanyahu himself discussed the concern in his autobiography Bibi: My Story, which came out last year.
In a chapter titled "Tunnel Wars" that begins with 2014's Operation Protective Edge, Netanyahu described exactly the sort of attack carried out by Hamas on October 7.
"Our intelligence had previously discovered that Hamas had dug dozens of terror tunnels meant to cross under the border fence," he wrote. "Their specially trained forces could emerge from below ground and infiltrate unseen into the very heart of Israeli communities to kill and kidnap civilians and soldiers alike. Hamas intended to surprise Israel by initiating the simultaneous penetration of hundreds of terrorists into the country. They planned to enter kindergartens and schools, murder Israelis, and whisk dozens of hostages to Gaza back through the tunnels."
Meanwhile, more recently, opposition leader Yair Lapid gave a statement just before Yom Kippur this year warning of an impending war.
"On Yom Kippur Eve, I'm forced to warn Israel's citizens: we are getting dangerously close to a multi-front violent conflict," he said. "According to reports from the defense system, the number of alerts from the West Bank is unprecedented, and the recent events at the Gaza border are exactly the type that, in the past, led to conflicts."
He added that while previous governments knew how to thwart such eventualities, this time it wouldn't happen because the government wasn't coordinated with the defense sector.