Israeli opposition leader gives Netanyahu’s wife 24-hour apology ultimatum for 7th October claim

Israeli opposition leader Yair Golan gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife, Sara Netanyahu, 24 hours Tuesday to apologize and retract remarks that appeared to suggest he knew about the 7th October 2023 attack in advance, threatening to sue her if she refused.

The dispute began after Sara Netanyahu told Channel 14 on Monday that Golan was in the area near the Gaza Strip during the first hours of the attack.

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

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

Golan is a reserve major general in the Israeli army and served as deputy chief of staff from 2014 to 2017. He was also deputy economy minister from 2021 to 2022.

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Golan sent Sara Netanyahu a legal warning demanding that she apologise and retract her remarks within 24 hours.

Failure to do so would prompt him to file a defamation lawsuit seeking damages, he said.

“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 the US social media company X.

He called the remarks a “false conspiracy,” accusing her of trying “to rewrite 7th October, 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 also pledged that, if his party joins the next government, he will “establish a state commission of inquiry (into the attacks), expose the truth, and find those responsible for the failure.”

Israel launched a genocide on Gaza on 8th October 2023, one day after the Palestine resistance group, Hamas, attacked Israel in a cross-border raid. The war continued for two years, causing widespread destruction, while Israeli violations have continued despite a ceasefire that has been in effect since 10th October 2025.

As of Tuesday, Israel’s attacks on Gaza had killed about 73,462 Palestinians and wounded 174,509 others, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

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