Freed hostage Ilana Gritzewsky holds a smoke torch as protesters set a hearth throughout an indication calling for the discharge of all hostages held by Hamas in Gaza on Saturday in Tel Aviv. Israel’s home safety company says it now had Hamas’ battle plans and different warnings for the Oct. 7, 2023 assaults however didn’t take them critically.
Amir Levy/Getty Photos
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Amir Levy/Getty Photos
TEL AVIV, Israel — Hamas code-named it The Promise of Judgement Day. As early as 2018, Israel caught wind of Hamas’ battle plan to invade Israel from neighboring Gaza. However Israel’s home intelligence company didn’t take into account it a practical menace.
That’s the predominant conclusion of an investigation by Israel’s Shin Wager company into the colossal safety failure of the Hamas-led assault on Oct. 7, 2023. It was the one deadliest day in Israeli historical past, when 1000’s of Palestinian attackers killed practically 1,200 folks and took 251 folks hostage.
That is the primary inquiry by Israel’s predominant company tasked with spying on Hamas into why Israel didn’t detect and stop the assault, following one other inquiry by Israel’s navy. The Shin Wager hinted at failures by Israel’s political management to hold out the company’s need to assassinate senior Hamas leaders, and blamed Israeli insurance policies of propping up Hamas rule in Gaza to purchase calm on its border.
The report sparked a retort from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has deflected private accountability within the safety failure.
“On the night of the attack, the Shin Bet chief did not see fit to wake the Prime Minister — a fundamental and obvious decision that should have been made without question,” mentioned a press release from Netanyahu’s workplace.
What went unsuitable? A abstract of Israel’s findings
In an uncommon transfer for the group, the Shin Wager spy company revealed particulars of its investigation Tuesday. Here’s a checklist of its predominant findings:
- Israel maintained a coverage of calm with Hamas, which allowed for the group’s “massive buildup.” Israel allowed Qatar to switch thousands and thousands of {dollars} to Hamas to fund its governing paperwork in Gaza. The cash was diverted to Hamas’ navy capabilities.
- Israel falsely thought Hamas was attempting to inflame tensions within the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution, relatively than maneuvering to invade Israel from Gaza. Israel had concluded that any main assault can be a multi-front assault from militias all through the area, not simply from Gaza.
- Israel thought its border barrier with Gaza, a system of fences and partitions, was extra fortified than it truly was.
- Israel had a poor community of spies in Gaza, following a botched intelligence operation in Gaza that Hamas uncovered in 2018. Gaza is a closed-off territory, making it tough for Israel to recruit sources there.
- Hamas’s determination to assault when it did was as a consequence of a confluence of three elements: Israeli practices relating to spiritual Jewish ultranationalist actions on the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, which can be revered in Judaism; Israel’s therapy of Palestinian prisoners, which had hardened underneath Israel’s far-right authorities; and the notion that Israel’s social cohesion was weakened, which was at a time of home Israeli avenue protests over Netanyahu’s weakening of the nation’s judiciary.
A timeline of intelligence failures earlier than the assault
- Israel had obtained intelligence of Hamas’ battle plans in two iterations, as soon as in 2018 and one other in 2022, however the company didn’t translate it into an actionable menace. A sequence of indicators within the months main as much as the Oct. 7, 2023 assault was dismissed.
- At 1:00 a.m., hours earlier than the assault, the intelligence company reported Hamas was conducting emergency preparedness — but in addition noticed indicators of restraint, and assessed that Hamas was not enthusiastic about an escalation at the moment.
- At 3:03 a.m., the Shin Wager alerted the nation’s safety branches, together with the Prime Minister’s Nationwide Safety Council, that a number of Hamas brigades had been activating their networks of cellphones. In a message, the company mentioned that together with extra indicators, “it could point to Hamas offensive activity.” Forty-five SIM playing cards had been progressively activated from the night of Oct. 5 till two hours earlier than the Oct. 7 assault, however brokers dismissed it as a result of an identical variety of SIM playing cards had been activated throughout the identical interval one 12 months earlier than.
- At 4:30 a.m., the Shin Wager chief briefed deputies concerning the worrying indicators, and a workforce of forces was despatched to Israel’s south to organize for a attainable infiltration, but it surely was not ample to thwart the large-scale assault.
“The Shin Bet did not prevent the massacre of October 7,” mentioned Ronen Bar, the chief of the intelligence company, within the revealed abstract of the findings. “As the one who led the organization, I will carry this heavy burden on my shoulders for my entire life.”
Yanal Jabarin contributed to this story from Jerusalem.
