For Palestinians in besieged Gaza, Israel’s eyes are never very far away.
Surveillance drones buzz constantly from the skies. The highly-securedborder is awash with security cameras and soldiers on guard. Intelligenceagencies work sources and cyber capabilities to draw out a bevvy ofinformation.
But Israel’s eyes appeared to have been closed in the lead-up to anunprecedented onslaught by the Hamas group, which broke down Israeli borderbarriers and sent hundreds of fighters into Israel to carry out anunprecedented attack of massive scale.
Israel’s intelligence agencies have gained an aura of invincibility overthe decades because of a string of achievements. Israel has apparentlyfoiled plots seeded in the occupied West Bank, allegedly hunted down Hamasoperatives in Dubai and has been accused of killing Iranian nuclearscientists in the heart of Iran.
Even when their efforts have stumbled, agencies like the Mossad, Shin Betand military intelligence have maintained their mystique.
But the weekend’s assault, which caught Israel off guard on a major Jewishholiday, plunges that reputation into doubt and raises questions about thecountry’s readiness in the face of a weaker but determined foe.
Over 48 hours later, Hamas fighters continued to battle Israeli forcesinside Israeli territory and dozens of Israelis were in Hamas captivity inGaza.
Israel-Palestine conflict escalates once again following Hamas’ massivemilitary operation, marking the largest ever Palestinian attack on Israel.Let’s take a look at previous escalations in the region up until now ????pic.twitter.com/8iVBYr5pBH link— TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) October 7, 2023link
“First, we fight, then we investigate”
“This is a major failure,” said Yaakov Amidror, a former national securityadviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “This operation actuallyproves that the (intelligence) abilities in Gaza were no good.”
Amidror declined to offer an explanation for the failure, saying lessonsmust be learned when the dust settles.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief military spokesman, acknowledged thearmy owes the public an explanation. But he said now is not the time.“First, we fight, then we investigate,” he said.
Some say it is too early to pin the blame solely on an intelligence fault.
They point to a wave of low-level violence in the occupied West Bank thatshifted some military resources there and the political chaos roilingIsrael over steps by Netanyahu’s far-right government to overhaul thejudiciary.
The controversial plan has threatened the cohesion of the country’spowerful military.
But the apparent lack of prior knowledge of Hamas’ plot will likely be seenas a prime culprit in the chain of events that led to the unprecedentedattack against Israelis in decades.
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Mustafa Fatih Yavuz brings us the latest from occupied East Jerusalem onHamas unprecedented offensive against Israel pic.twitter.com/2i3iGQrtCflink— TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) October 7, 2023link
Technological and human intelligence
Israel withdrew troops and settlers from the besieged Gaza in 2005,stripping it of a close handle on the happenings in the territory. But evenafter Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, Israel appeared to maintain itsedge, using technological and human intelligence.
It claimed to know the precise locations of Hamas leadership and appearedto prove it through the assassinations of resistance leaders in surgicalstrikes, sometimes while they slept in their bedrooms.
Israel has known where to strike underground tunnels used by Hamas to ferryaround fighters and arms, destroying kilometres of concealed passageways.
Despite those abilities, Hamas was able to keep its plan under wraps. Theattack, which likely took months of planning and meticulous training andinvolved coordination among multiple groups, appeared to have gone underIsrael’s intelligence radar.
Amir Avivi, a retired Israeli general, said that without a foothold insideGaza, Israel’s security services have come to rely increasingly ontechnological means to gain intelligence.
He said militants in Gaza have found ways to evade that technologicalintelligence gathering, giving Israel an incomplete picture of theirintentions.
“They’ve gone back to the Stone Age”
“The other side learned to deal with our technological dominance, and theystopped using technology that could expose it,” said Avivi, who served as aconduit for intelligence materials under a former military chief of staff.Avivi is president and founder of Israel Defense and Security Forum, ahawkish group of former military commanders.
“They’ve gone back to the Stone Age,” he said, explaining that resistancefighters weren’t using phones or computers and were conducting theirsensitive business in rooms specially guarded from technological espionageor going underground.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian resistance groupHamas, released new videos showing a number of its fighters inside Israelimilitary sites during the ‘Al Aqsa Flood’ operationpic.twitter.com/eQzrTg40zs link— TRT World (@trtworld) October 9, 2023link
But Avivi said the failure extends beyond just intelligence gathering andIsrael’s security services failed to put together an accurate picture fromthe intelligence they were receiving, based on what he said was amisconception surrounding Hamas’ intentions.
Israel’s security establishment has, in recent years, increasingly seenHamas as an actor interested in governing, seeking to develop Gaza’seconomy and improve the standard of living of Gaza’s 2.3 million people.link