Netanyahu, alone at the top, makes a friend on the beach

What was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doing in the hours leading up to the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the “father of Iran’s atomic bomb”? It turns out he was all by himself on a cliff overlooking the sea, near his home in Caesarea. He sat watching the waves in a black T-shirt and track pants, surrounded by a tight ring of security and snipers.

A few of those mesmerizing moments were captured for posterity by a 9-year-old boy named Uri, who was walking along the coast with his father on that Friday afternoon. The beach was empty because of the winter weather. It was his father who first realized that something was going on. He couldn’t help but notice the armored limos and the unusually high level of security just 200 meters away, so he told his son, “It must be Netanyahu.” Feeling particularly animated that day, Uri grabbed his father’s phone and started running toward the cliff. When Netanyahu saw him, he gestured to him to come over and asked his security detail to let the boy through. For the next few minutes, Netanyahu was filmed talking to a child, who was so close to the heavily guarded prime minister that he could actually touch him.

When Uri and his father got home, they were eager to share their story with the rest of the family. The boy’s grandfather, Maj. Gen. Itzhak Brik, sent the video to his friend, military correspondent Carmella Menashe, who posted it on Twitter the next day. The rare footage went viral, receiving hundreds of thousands of views. Even more exciting for Uri, he became a TV sensation overnight.

What we learn from the many interviews with Uri and his father is that Netanyahu did not arrange for the boy to be there. Nor did he prevent him from approaching either, even though that would have been easy for him. Apparently, he recognized the potential that the footage would have, so he cooperated and took no steps to prevent the clip from being posted online.