*Palestinian Resistance Media Responds to the ‘Haaretz’ Article*
The resistance platform, ‘Pursuit of the Fifth Column,’ has published a response to Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval’s 7 October 2026 ‘Haaretz’ article (“Revealed: Netanyahu Received an Explicit Warning Days Before Oct. 7. He Didn't Brief Israel's Security Chiefs”). The response directly engages with the narrative that Tufan al-Aqsa was “permitted” by the occupation as a casus belli—a narrative proffered by both the liberal Zionist, anti-Netanyahu flank of the security, intelligence, and political establishment within ‘Israel’ and myriad Fatah/Palestinian Authority figures. The article, translated in full below, reads as follows:
“‘Haaretz’ revealed that Mohamed bin Zayed had warned the head of the occupation government, Benjamin Netanyahu, just days before the October 7, 2023 attack. This revelation confronts the Emirati regime with the reality of its role as an intelligence base serving the occupation and gathering information against our people and their resistance activity.
Yet the same claims also undermine the myth promoted by Palestinian Authority mouthpieces and Fatah’s online trolls that the occupation ‘allowed the operation’ to take place. Such a claim would mean that the occupation army deliberately permitted the greatest security and military breach in its history, accepted the killing of more than 1,500 Israelis, and allowed its military prestige to be dragged through the mud simply so that Netanyahu could obtain a pretext for attacking Gaza.
Military experts and analysts in Hebrew-language and international media agree that the claim that the attack was ‘deliberately allowed’ fundamentally contradicts the strategic logic of deterrence.
Many have asked: ‘How could an entity that built its existence on the myth of the “invincible army” accept the paralysis of its leadership, the destruction of its military divisions, the capture of dozens of officers and soldiers, and the killing of hundreds of settlers and soldiers in a single day? How could it accept the greatest defeat in its history merely to obtain a pretext for war?’
*Contempt, Denial, and Lack of Intelligence: The Causes of the October 7 Failure*
The same Hebrew-language newspaper published an investigation last year into the Israeli intelligence failure to anticipate the October 7 attack. It concluded that contempt, denial, and the military’s cessation of intelligence gathering on Hamas for more than two years led to the al-Aqsa Flood.
The newspaper cited current and former officials who said that, beginning in May 2021, the army stopped gathering intelligence on meetings of Hamas leaders and on Hamas training exercises. This followed the operation that ‘Israel’ called ‘Guardian of the Walls.’
*’Hamas Will Not Launch an Attack’*
The investigation found that the Israeli military had not considered the possibility that Hamas fighters could breach the underground barrier the army had constructed along the Gaza Strip border, as well as the surrounding fence.
‘Israeli’ commanders continued to dismiss the warning signs until the final moments before the October 7 attack. An ‘Israeli’ soldier informed his commanders of ‘unusual’ activity involving a Hamas commander, but the commanders dismissed it as nothing more than ‘routine training.’
At the political level, other analyses have portrayed the accusations, leaks, and conflicting documents exchanged between Netanyahu’s office, the Shin Bet leadership, and the army as part of a struggle for political survival and an effort to evade investigations into the failure to prevent the ‘Black Saturday’ of 7 October 2023.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority apparatchiks and Fatah have attempted to downplay this failure by promoting the claim that ‘Netanyahu allowed the operation.’ This represents a profound debasement of political discourse and a wholesale embrace of ‘Israeli’ narratives.
Observers argue that their media conduct goes beyond ordinary political rivalry. It reaches the point of dangerous alignment with the occupation’s propaganda at a time when the Palestinian people are facing a war of total annihilation.
*A Moral Collapse That Goes Beyond Political Rivalry*
Political activist and writer Amer Yassin stressed that political disagreement with Hamas, criticism of its policies, and holding it accountable are all legitimate within the Palestinian arena. None of this, however, justifies responding positively to the occupation’s narratives and threats or treating them as a political gain in an internal dispute.
*Malicious Exploitation*
Experts argue that enlisting figures who hold leadership positions in a political movement as prominent as Fatah in Israeli incitement networks marks a dangerous development in psychological warfare and rumor-mongering. They argue that the involvement of Fatah leaders and affiliated figures in the ‘Avichay Adraee’ incitement network is intended to lend false credibility to anti-resistance rhetoric and exploit their positions within the movement to sow divisions among Palestinians. These revelations have prompted growing calls from Palestinians and activists to put an end to what they see as a moral and national disgrace. They ask bitterly: How can Fatah allow someone who has sunk to this level [Muhammad Munzir al-Batta] to represent the movement in a major European capital? And how can someone who claims to be a national leader engage in such disgraceful conduct, inciting against his own people at a time when they are being slaughtered?
Activists are calling for immediate national action. They are demanding an immediate decision to remove and dismiss Muhammad Munzir al-Batta from all of his organizational and leadership positions, thereby preventing the [Fatah] movement’s name and institutional standing from being exploited in the service of ‘Israeli’ intelligence efforts.
They have also called for a comprehensive national investigation into his political and media ties with psychological-warfare units. They further demand that all of his accounts and incendiary platforms be banned, arguing that these platforms serve only the occupation’s objectives and promote collaboration and defeat.”