The balloon test
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The balloon test is the piece of evidence John Kiriakou puts at the centre of his argument that the Israeli government had advance knowledge of the 7 October 2023 attack. He set it out on the DeProgram programme in August 2025.

The excuse he is answering

Kiriakou frames the argument against an official explanation he considers weak: "remember this weak-ass excuse that came out from the Israeli government in the days after October the 7th. The excuse was that, well, we knew something was coming, but Smotrich and Ben-Gvir told us it was going to be in the West Bank. We didn't know it was going to come from Gaza."

The two contradictions

His first objection is about who was reporting what. "We know that's not true because settlers along the line with Gaza were reporting for months that there was training under way."

The second is the balloons. "And then remember, in the days before October 7th, Hamas sent balloons over as a test, and still the Israelis did nothing."

The inference he draws is stated as a certainty: "So that tells me that of course the Israelis knew it was coming."

The motive, and its limit

Asked why a government would let such an attack proceed, Kiriakou's answer is territorial: "Why would they want it to happen? So that they could launch their drive for greater Israel."

He is careful about how far this goes. The host had already drawn the same distinction in his own account of the day, pointing to a response time of seven and a half hours in a country too small for such delays, and to a breached smart fence that produced no arrival, and had put the limit explicitly: "I don't think they told Hamas to do it. I don't think they planned it, but I think they were like, 'This is going to be our great opportunity.'"

Kiriakou's reply to that framing was "Ted, I couldn't agree more", and his own account adds no claim of Israeli authorship, only of foreknowledge and inaction.

See also

- October 7 attack
- Benjamin Netanyahu
- Famine in Gaza
- John Kiriakou
