An Israeli army inquiry into the sequence of errors within the lead-up to and through the Hamas-led assault of October 7, 2023, has acknowledged the military’s “full failure” to forestall it.
In what investigators say was a extremely coordinated assault that took years of planning, teams of Hamas-led fighters broke out of Gaza and attacked Israeli communities and a music competition alongside the frontier.
In complete,1,139 individuals died through the assault and about 250 taken captive.
The report particulars a historical past of misconceptions in regards to the threat posed by Hamas and a refusal to simply accept warning indicators of an assault, in addition to the military’s lack of ability to coordinate a response.
Whereas the report has laid naked lots of the Israeli military failings on October 7, 2023, comparable investigations into the political failings have been repeatedly blocked by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition.
How did Israel’s military underestimate Hamas?
The report says the military has a decades-long “basic misunderstanding” of Hamas, main senior officers to underestimate the group’s capabilities and intentions.
Navy planners had assumed Hamas posed no vital menace to Israel and that it was bored with a large-scale conflict, in accordance with investigators.
Planners additionally believed Hamas’s tunnel networks had been considerably degraded, with any cross-border menace simply thwarted by Israel’s high-tech separation barrier.
Regardless of warning indicators, reminiscent of uncommon actions by Hamas fighters, Israeli authorities insisted that the group was targeted on sustaining governance inside Gaza and would assault Israel by rocket, slightly than a large-scale floor invasion.
In addition they misjudged Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, assuming he was “not keen on a wider conflict”.
What warning intelligence did Israel ignore earlier than the assault?
Within the hours main as much as the assault, the report mentioned, the Israeli army both ignored or misinterpreted a number of indications that an assault was imminent.
On the night earlier than the assault, a number of feminine spotters alerted their commanders to uncommon exercise alongside the border. Moreover, officers reported the mass activation of Israeli SIM playing cards identified to be within the palms of Hamas fighters, in addition to suspicious actions in Hamas’s rocket deployment;
Nevertheless, commanders as an alternative relied upon what they mentioned have been “reassuring indicators” that Hamas was merely conducting a army train.
How did Israeli intelligence misread occasions?
In accordance with the report, Hamas started contemplating the October 2023 incursion as early as 2016.
Nevertheless, Israel’s intelligence neighborhood dismissed such stories as “unrealistic”, believing Hamas to have been deterred by the Israeli response to the rebellion in Might 2021, when Israel killed 232 individuals in Gaza.
The Israeli military has since realised that Hamas had determined as early as April 2022 to launch its assault. By September of that yr, it was 85 p.c prepared and in Might 2023, it set October 7 because the date.
What have been the Israeli operational failures that day?
Many.
The military was unprepared for the assault, investigators discovered, and the deployment of troops was considerably delayed, permitting Palestinian fighters to push on with no speedy resistance.
In a single kibbutz, Nir Oz, which the military is accused of getting deserted, one survivor later instructed the Israeli chief of employees that the final Palestinian fighter had left lengthy earlier than the primary Israeli soldier entered.
Assessments of fighter numbers have been additionally discovered to be vast of the mark, with planners wildly underestimating the size of the assault.
It was later decided that 5,600 fighters crossed the border in three waves, backed by a barrage of some 4,000 rockets and 57 drones.
Consequently, Israel’s Gaza Division of slightly greater than 700 troopers was overwhelmed and, for hours, remained “defeated” and army planners have been unaware of that whereas coordinating their response.
It wasn’t till round 12pm [10:00 GMT], when reinforcements started to reach, that Gaza Division started to function.
The report additionally famous that the Israeli air power struggled to differentiate between Hamas fighters and Israeli civilians. Whereas the report avoids going into particulars, the army accepted some Israelis had been killed by pleasant hearth.
Simultaneous to the assault, investigators discovered, many plane have been deployed towards the properties of senior Hamas commanders in Gaza as an alternative of defending civilians and troopers underneath assault.
Did commanders order the Hannibal Directive?
In accordance with a number of Israeli newspapers, sure, and plenty of civilians died in consequence.
The Hannibal Directive, which orders that the Israeli army to make use of all power doable to forestall Israeli combatants from being taken captive, together with killing anybody round them, was ordered through the assault, the Israeli every day, Haaretz reported.
As such, orders have been issued on October 7 for Israeli forces to forestall Hamas from returning to Gaza with captives “in any respect prices” which included killing civilian non-combatants.
A few of the pilots flying over the battlefield have been reportedly unwilling to behave upon the Directive and every so often held off from firing altogether, from concern about hitting civilians.
However, subsequent investigations have proven a number of civilians have been killed on account of the Hannibal Directive.
One, Efrat Katz, was killed by helicopter hearth as she was being transported to Gaza by Hamas fighters.
In Kibbutz Be’eri, an Israeli tank fired two shells right into a home identified to be holding over a dozen captives, together with 12-year-old twins. Solely two captives survived.
What are the important thing takeaways?
Earlier than the assault, key warnings, reminiscent of elevated fighter exercise and intelligence stories, have been both ignored or misinterpreted.
Assessments by the Israeli military underestimated the size of the assault, with poor communication and poor intelligence-sharing amongst commanders including to the failures
The Israeli military was sluggish to reply to the Hamas-led assault and reinforcements have been too sluggish in arriving.
No comparable investigation has been undertaken into the actions of the federal government earlier than and through the assault.
