Rockets are fired toward Israel from Gaza, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
The head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service has taken responsibility for not warning of the bloody Oct. 7 Hamas rampage that killed over 1,400 Israelis.
In a message sent to Shin Bet workers and their families over the weekend, Ronen Bar wrote that “despite a number of actions we took, unfortunately, on Saturday we were unable to create enough early warning to prevent the attack.”
“As the person at the head of the organization, the responsibility for that is on me,” he added. “There will be time for investigation — now is a time for war.”
The letter was obtained by The Associated Press on Monday.
The Shin Bet leads Israel’s efforts to track and monitor Palestinian militants. The Israeli news site Ynet has reported that on the eve of the attack, Bar was summoned to the office because of abnormal activity detected in Gaza. But officials believed that only a limited attack would take place, according to the report.
Former first lady Rosalynn Carter has died at the age of 96. The Carter Center in Atlanta announced that the wife of former President Jimmy Carter died Sunday afternoon at her home in Plains, Georgia, with her family at her side.
Communications systems in the Gaza Strip were down for a second day with no fuel to power the internet and phone networks, causing aid agencies to halt cross-border deliveries of humanitarian supplies even as they warned people may soon face starvation.
President Joe Biden has ended the immediate threat of a government shutdown, signing a temporary spending bill a day before much of the government was to run out of money.
A gag order that barred Donald Trump from commenting about court personnel after he disparaged a law clerk in his New York civil fraud trial was temporarily lifted Thursday by an appellate judge who raised free speech concerns.
