Katz says Lapid, Bennett and Golan will carry blame for any pre-election attack

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on October 22 that any attack on Israel or any future terror attack would be laid at the door of opposition figures Yair Lapid, Naftali Bennett and Yair Golan, along with their colleagues in the opposition. The statement was carried in full on the News.co.il Telegram channel and on the Telegram channel of journalist Amit Segal.

Katz tied the accusation to warnings he and the prime minister have issued, which he said rest on information held by the government, about enemy intentions to strike Israel and carry out attacks just before or during the election in order to sway its result. He accused the opposition of repeatedly attacking him and the prime minister and of casting doubt on their motives for issuing those warnings. The Jerusalem Post framed the remarks as Katz saying the opposition had ignored the warnings and would bear responsibility for what followed.

What Katz said about the criticism

In the statement, Katz argued that critics who attribute what he called improper or outside considerations to the government were showing that they were out of touch, and were themselves driven by narrow political interests. He said such criticism damages Israeli deterrence and encourages Israel's enemies to act.

The version published by News.co.il also included a passage on military readiness. In it, Katz said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the country's military, is prepared in both intelligence and operational terms to carry out preventive and defensive action against Iran and its proxies on every front, in order to deter and to protect Israeli citizens, and that it would act immediately if required. The text as published breaks off at that point.

The opposition's response

Ynet reported that the exchange followed a claim by Lapid that there was no reason to strike Iran before 27/10. According to Ynet, Katz insisted in reply that claims of outside considerations reflected detachment from reality.

Ynet also reported a response from Eisenkot, an opposition politician, who accused Katz of preparing the ground for the next disaster and of shifting responsibility onto others in advance.

Ynet's own account was openly sceptical of the minister's warning. The outlet wrote that Katz had again cited information in the government's possession about plans to attack Israel on the eve of the election, despite there being no concrete information to that effect, and that he had already identified who was to blame. That characterisation is Ynet's; the other reports carry Katz's statement without comment on the underlying intelligence.

Who was named

Katz singled out three opposition figures. Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett are both former prime ministers who are now campaigning against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which Katz serves as defence minister. Yair Golan leads a party on the centre-left. The defence minister is the cabinet member responsible for the military and the defence establishment, which gives his public statements on security threats particular weight.

The election setting

The remarks came in the middle of Israel's general election campaign for the Knesset, the country's parliament. Ynet published its report in its section dedicated to the 2026 election, and Haaretz's live election coverage on the same day included a photograph of Netanyahu and Katz together, alongside reports on other campaign developments, including an attack on activists of the Democrats party in central Israel.

Security has been a central theme of the campaign. Haaretz's coverage that day, for example, profiled a new far-right party focused on defence that has called for an inquiry into the October 7 attacks.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports describes the information Katz cited, who the enemies planning the alleged attacks are beyond his reference to Iran and its proxies, or what form such attacks might take. Ynet asserts there is no concrete information behind the warning, but does not say how it reached that conclusion, and the government's side has not, in these reports, offered evidence either way.

The reports do not explain what significance Lapid attached to the date he mentioned, or quote his original remarks in full. Responses from Bennett and Golan, both named directly by Katz, do not appear in any of the material. The readiness passage in Katz's statement is cut off in the published text, so its final wording is not known.