Shin Bet chief David Zini has dismissed pervasive conspiracy theories regarding the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel that claim the massacre was carried out with the collaboration of senior Israeli officials.

The conspiracy theories have been rife among hardline supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has not commented publicly to dispel the notion, leading critics to suggest he is using such claims to help shift responsibility from himself for the failures surrounding the events of October 7.

The theories appear to have emerged as a result of the staggering failures by the political and security establishment that enabled the attack to take place, with some Israelis struggling to accept that the country’s vaunted defense apparatus could have collapsed so completely, turning instead to conspiracies for answers.

Zini spoke about the issue on Tuesday at a leadership conference of the domestic intelligence agency he heads. His remarks were released to the public on Thursday by the Shin Bet.

He told the conference that he accepts the Shin Bet’s internal investigation into the failures of October 7, which was conducted under his predecessor, Ronen Bar, but acknowledged that there are “still additional issues to examine.”

However, he stressed to those in attendance that one absolutely clear thing was that “there was no ‘betrayal’ or ‘collaboration’ on the part of the Shin Bet or any members of the security establishment.”

Instead, he said, the Shin Bet had “committed a severe professional failure, and we must work day by day, hour by hour, in order to correct and implement all the lessons, and complete what remains to be investigated.”

A summary of the findings from the Shin Bet’s probe into the failures during the lead-up to October 7 was published in March 2025.

The agency found both internal and external factors were to blame for Israel’s failure to prevent the invasion of thousands of terrorists from Gaza on the morning of October 7, the murder of some 1,200 people, and the abduction of 251 hostages.

The agency found that it had failed to provide an alert for the onslaught, and that warning signs received by the security agency on the night of October 6 did not translate into sounding the alarm.

At the time, then-agency chief Bar acknowledged that if the Shin Bet had acted differently, “the massacre would have been avoided.”

The IDF has also led extensive investigations into its own failures, which found that the military had insistently misinterpreted intelligence on Hamas over the years; that it overrelied on having an early warning to prepare its defenses; that its troops deployed to the Gaza border were massively outnumbered by the invading terrorists; and that it failed to understand what Hamas was doing during the attack until many hours later. The IDF’s conduct, decision-making, and the intelligence it possessed on the night between October 6 and 7, ahead of the onslaught, were based on the results of years of false assessments about Hamas, according to the probes.

The one major sphere that has not been investigated in connection with the attacks is Israel’s political leadership and its policies over many years prior to the attack, with Netanyahu and his government refusing to form a state commission of inquiry, Israel’s most powerful investigative body.

Netanyahu claims that, as it is appointed by the judiciary, whose powers his government has sought to curb, it would be biased against the government. Last month, his coalition voted in favor of a preliminary reading of a highly controversial bill sponsored by Likud MK Ariel Kallner to set up a politically appointed probe.

Zini’s remarks at the conference came on the heels of a Channel 12 survey two days prior, which found that 46% of first-time voters in the coming election believe there was some form of internal betrayal that led to the events of October 7.

Netanyahu, for his part, was reported to tell a closed meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee earlier this month that “there was a serious intelligence failure, but there was no treason.” But he has not publicly addressed the matter.

Zini’s remarks on Thursday were welcomed by former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who is seen as the most credible challenger to Netanyahu’s leadership bid in the upcoming elections.

The Shin Bet leader’s comments were “important and necessary,” said Bennett. “Anyone who continues to spread these blood libels against the IDF and the Shin Bet is intentionally harming Israel’s security.”

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October 7 Hamas atrocities

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