'Colossal intelligence failure' as Israel caught unprepared, unguarded to face Hamas attack: Experts, media

The Saturday morning’s surprise and unprecedented attack – by air, land and sea – by the ruling Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip in Israel’s southern parts is a result of a 'colossal failure' of Israel’s intelligence, media reports and experts have said.

Hamas militants fired more than 2,000 rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel, according to the Israeli military, while Hamas fighters entered southern Israel by land, sea and air, using paragliders and even captured several Israeli soldiers near the border.

At least 70 people have been killed and more than 600 injured in Israel. In the Gaza Strip side, there are 198 deaths and about 1,500 wounded in Israel’s counterattack, media reports said.

Israel has always prided itself on its intelligence agencies, Shin Bet, the domestic unit, and especially on Mossad, its external spy agency.

However, more than 2,000 rockets as dozens of fighters infiltrated the heavily fortified border in several locations by air, land and sea, catching the country off guard on a major holiday.

All this happened despite Israel having one of the strongest militaries in the region, security cameras at the border, personnel from both Shin Bet and Mossad in the field, state-of-the-art thermal imaging/motion sensors and even sophisticated border fencing.

Some experts feel that Israel got so totally engrossed in countering Iran and in efforts to foil the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme that it has neglected its own backyard.

A report in Jerusalem Post, a leading newspaper, said, “Gaza was on the back burner in terms of a sense of security threats because Iran-backed proxies have been increasing threats elsewhere” and gave details of the events unfolded over the last three-four years in the region which, it said, led to “Hamas in Gaza appeared isolated, unable to even get more funds from the usual sources, such as Qatar.”

“With Israeli normalisation agreements growing in the region, Hamas seemed to present an outdated ideology living in the past. This seems to have lulled people into a false sense of security,” it pointed out.

Against the repeated warnings following every escalation that a truce would only help Hamas and other Islamic organisations to rebuild their strength for the next round, Israel had agreed to a ceasefire with Hamas recently, which, some experts said, warnings ignored because of domestic constraints of politics.

“Even as Israel’s political chiefs began to convene in emergency consultations, with the full extent of the infiltration and its consequences still unfolding, Hebrew media began quoting unnamed officials castigating the political and military echelons for the fact that Israel, preoccupied with internal argument, had again been taken by surprise,” said a report in Times of Israel.

“The IDF’s assumption, in recent years, was that Hamas was deterred from carrying out major attacks in Israel — fearing the potency of Israel’s response, and wary of plunging Gaza into renewed devastation,” it said, pointing: “All too evidently, that assumption was unfounded.”

Eli Maron, the former head of the Israeli Navy told a new channel anchor, “All of Israel is asking itself: Where is the IDF, where is the police, where is the security? It’s a colossal failure; the hierarchies have simply failed, with vast consequences.”

The Times of Israel also quoted Amos Yadlin, a former IDF intelligence chief, as saying, (the attack) invoked echoes of the Yom Kippur War — another attack marked by “intelligence failure,” with the enemy initiating conflict.

For scores of Israelis, Saturday’s deadly infiltration immediately revived painful memories of the October 1973 war practically 50 years to the day, in which Israel’s enemies had launched a surprise attack on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism.

“It cannot be understated or put in less severe terms: The IDF, the strongest military in the Middle East and one of the most respected worldwide was caught completely by surprise in the Hamas attack on Israel on Saturday,” screamed YNetNews, a leading portal.

“All military intelligence estimations until the early morning hours, were that the Hamas terror group was deterred and uninterested in war spreading to Gaza. Accordingly, the IDF reduced its troop deployment in the south, moving forces to the West Bank where a terror wave has been ongoing,” it added.

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), in an analysis, pointed out: “With the combined efforts of Shin Bet, Israeli domestic intelligence, Mossad, its external spy agency and all the assets of the Israel Defence Forces, it is frankly astounding that nobody saw this coming.”

“Or if they did, they failed to act on it,” it said, listing Israel’s capabilities ranging from informants’ network, drone attack strikes, and precision assassinations among others, and then added, “To prepare for and carry out such a coordinated, complex attack involving the stockpiling and firing of thousands of rockets, right under the noses of the Israelis, must have taken extraordinary levels of operational security by Hamas.”

Some experts are also blaming it on the internal divide within Israel in view of the judicial overhaul plan initiated by the government that has led to massive calls for boycott, depleting strength in positions.

CNN’s intelligence and counter-terrorism analyst Kimberly Dozier weighed in on Hamas strategy and how Israeli intelligence apparently missed the signals of an attack as she said, “How did such a large group of people plan such a large operation without detection by the Israeli side when Israeli defence officials practically bragged about how they infiltrated all Palestinian communications in Gaza and the West Bank even if they were using encrypted Apps.”

“This is an incredible message on the part of the Palestinians and Hamas that they were able to gather all these weapons and (carry out) multiple massive attacks,” she said.

The Israeli government authorities did seem concerned about Israeli preparedness in a war-like situation and went around checking shelter houses across the country, but it is not clear if that was directed towards a possible fight with Iran or a probable Palestinian attack.