Major failures appeared before, during and even after the violent attack perpetrated by Hamas in Israel on October 7, 2023: the intelligence services were lacking, the responses in the first hours were not up to par, but beyond that, a whole system is being interrogated. However, no Israeli political or military leader, first and foremost Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, appears to be in a hurry to launch a commission of inquiry as long as the war continues.
In July, the military released the results of a limited investigation into the attack on Kibbutz Beeri, concluding a slow response and poor organization. In December 2023, the state comptroller, a Netanyahu loyalist, launched another investigation. The attorney general suspended her, arguing that she risked harming the war effort. The procedure was initiated at the request of the Israeli association Movement for Quality Government, which fights against corruption and excesses of power. The association wants a state investigative commission, independent of the government.
However, several officials drew conclusions from these events. In April, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, head of military intelligence, was the first officer to acknowledge responsibility for the Oct. 7 security fiasco and announce his resignation. In June, Avi Rosenfeld, commander of the Gaza division, did the same. Yossi Sariel, head of Unit 8200, the elite cyber intelligence unit, followed in September. The head of the Shin Bet (internal intelligence) in Israel’s southern region, who remained anonymous, has left his position. It must be said that, according to revelations from New York Times Released on November 30, Israeli services had obtained the plans for the attack, a 40-page Hamas document codenamed “Jericho Wall,” a year before it was launched. And the signs multiplied, until the day before the attack.
the defects
On October 6, at 11 p.m., an Israeli army lookout, a member of a team that monitors Hamas movements in Gaza, warned that a certain Ali Al-Qadhi, leader of a section of the armed group in the north of the enclave , acts suspiciously: “It seems like he is preparing for an assault, with his men.”reports, according to an investigation by the Israeli newspaper Haaretzpublished in May 2024. The recipient of the alert, an officer in the Gaza division, pays no attention to it, convinced that it is routine training. A few hours later, the Islamist movement launched the deadliest attack in Israel’s history.
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