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Akbar Novruz

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Israeli opposition leader Yair Golan has given Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife, Sara Netanyahu, 24 hours to apologize and retract remarks that he said falsely implied he had prior knowledge of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

The dispute began after Sara Netanyahu said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 14 on Monday that Golan had been in the area near the Gaza border during the first hours of the attack.

“When you are a senior-ranking military officer like this and claim that you were fighting on Oct. 7, you had been there since the early morning, dressed and ready,” she said, addressing Golan.

She added that Golan had been in the area “very early,” while others, “including the prime minister,” did not know what was happening.

Golan, a reserve major general in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), served as deputy chief of staff from 2014 to 2017 and later served as deputy economy minister from 2021 to 2022.

In a legal warning, Golan demanded that Sara Netanyahu retract her remarks and issue an apology within 24 hours. He threatened to file a defamation lawsuit if she failed to comply.

“An apology within 24 hours and compensation that will be donated to the Nova festival survivors or a lawsuit for 2.5 million shekels ($826,000),” Golan wrote on X.

He described the remarks as a “false conspiracy” and accused Sara Netanyahu of attempting “to rewrite October 7, turning those who went out to save lives into traitors and those who abandoned Israel's security into victims.”

“We will not allow them to erase the truth and the heroism of the fighters, the volunteers, and the civilians who stepped up when the government collapsed,” he added.

Golan has also pledged that if his party joins Israel’s next government, he would establish a state commission of inquiry into the October 7 attacks.

Such a commission, he said, would “expose the truth, and find those responsible for the failure.”