Israeli Intelligence Failures Amid Hamas Attack

Eli Marom, a former commander of the Israeli navy, said in a national broadcast that Israel as a whole is asking how Israeli intelligence failed amid the Hamas attack.

The ability of Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad to murder and kidnap hundreds of Israelis in a single day has never been achieved in history. The assault on Saturday was obviously well-thought-out, expertly coordinated, and well-armed, and it is highly possible that it had been prepared for months or even years. Over 600 Israelis are said to have died, according to The Times of Israel, while the military has confirmed that over 100 Palestinians are still held captive.

Israeli officials and media commentators are now seeking explanations for how Israel’s most renowned and illustrious intelligence agency, Mossad, could have missed it. How could the military have been blind to its impending arrival? How did the Gaza Islamists quickly and easily take over many IDF outposts?

Eli Marom, a former commander of the Israeli navy, said in a national broadcast that Israel as a whole is asking itself similar concerns.

The Elite Hamas Unit Tricked Israeli intelligence by making them think that the Hamas leadership was more concerned with the restoration of Gaza’s economy than with escalating hostilities.

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.”

“This surprise attack seems like a planned operation”

Efrat Fenigson, Peace activist and formerly served in Israeli IDF intelligence

Transcript of Efrat Fenigson:

• Oct. 7th, 2023, This is Efrat Fenigson, and I’m here to share an update on Israel-Hamas War which started this morning.
  I’m going to share some key details and concerns, mostly based on Israeli citizens’ voices from the ground, and on official statements.
• This is a very tough day for me and for us in Israel. It is tough for the people of Palestine too, especially now that Israel is starting to attack back. War is a horrible thing for everyone involved, except for those who get rich from it.
• This morning, around 6am, sunrise, Hundreds of Hamas terrorists, at least 300, breached the border fence in multiple places, completely unimpeded, leading to terror attacks and kidnappings in Israeli towns or villages.
• The terrorists infiltrated a significant number of dryland outposts as well as a naval infiltration point in Zikim. As we speak, Israel is actively engaged in combat in 22 outposts. – this is from the IDF statement.
• The attacks have already resulted in over 100 casualties and more than 100 kidnappings of Israeli citizens.
• In one village, 50 Israelis have been taken hostage, leaving people locked in shelters for long periods of 8-9 hours without rescue.
• In some places, the terrorists were burning the village and people didn’t know if to leave the shelter and surrender or stay and pray the fire doesn’t catch them.
• Many young people who were in a big outdoor party near the Gaza envelope villages, were attacked there, some ran away, some were injured and some are still missing.
• Apparently Israeli Defense forces that were supposed to be around Gaza were placed around the West Bank because of security concerns so the Gaza envelope was left unoccupied by the military.
• Soldiers are being recruited for reserves, but because of stupid reasons such as no public transport, they’re waiting hours to get to bases.
• Mainstream media apparently admits that IDF spokesperson is forbidding to tell the complete truth, highlighting a lack of transparency. Only now, 6pm Israel time, 12 hours after the event started, we received the first formal announcement from IDF spokesperson: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-october-7-2023/
• A year ago there was a military operation in Gaza to prepare for such events, and ongoingly there are trainings for these kinds of scenarios. This raises serious questions about Israeli intelligence. What happened?
• Two years ago there was a successful deployment of underground barriers in with sensors – to alert terrorists breaches. Israel has one of the most advanced and high-tech armies, how come there was zero response to the border and fence breaching??
• I served in the IDF 25 years ago, in the intelligence forces. There’s no way Israel did not know of what’s coming. A cat moving alongside the fence is triggering all forces. So this??
  What happened to the “strongest army in the world”?
  How come border crossings were wide open??
  Something is VERY WRONG HERE, something is very strange, this chain of events is very unusual and not typical for the Israeli defense system.

• With the recent normalization efforts of Israel and Palestine led by Saudi Arabia, I wonder whether a prisoners exchange deal is something that could only be seriously considered by Israel if a shocking event like that happened?
• Is it a possibility that only with Israeli hostages it can be justified to release dangerous  prisoners from Israeli prisons?
• MSM reported that “Deputy Hamas leader Saleh Al-Aruri suggests using Israeli prisoners for leverage in negotiations.”
• A point about the situation in Israel in the past few years – those who follow me know, that there’s a general sense of insecurity in Israel, there’s political and social instability, public funds are being misused on agendas such as Covid, climate, judicial reform, abolishing cash and more. The current and government is highly corrupt in my view, while the previous one was no better.
• I don’t care about having a popular opinion, I care about exposing evil forces – wherever they are:
  • To me this suprise attack seems like a planned operation. On all fronts.
    This is a failure to protect the people of Israel, for sure, perhaps the biggest failure since the Yom Kippur war exactly 50 years ago, if not bigger. – by the way – is it a coincidence it’s exactly 50 years ago, almost on the day? The Yom Kippur War was on Oct. 6th 1973.
  • If I was a conspiracy theorist I would say that this feels like the work of the Deep State.
    It feels like the people of Israel and the people of Palestine have been sold, once again, to the higher powers that be.
  • At the same time, this is still very difficult to fathom.

Israel-Hamas War – Efrat Fenigson 2nd Update (10/8/2023)

Update from the field on October 8th, 2023: the amount of fatalities, hostages taken, new information about human observers, the unpreparedness of the IDF, and Iran.

• Oct. 8th, 2023, This is Efrat Fenigson, and I’m here to share a second update from the Israel-Hamas War which started yesterday.
• The general situation in Israel is very hard to digest. It’s a mix of Confusion, frustration, fear, shock, hatred, and lots of sadness and anxiety – over murdered loved ones and missing people, some of which were taken hostage, in the most brutal ways one can imagine.
  The footage surfacing on social media are highly disturbing and hard to comprehend, they trigger trauma and often times people discover their missing loved ones in one of those videos or photos.
• Tonight on Israel’s channel 12 – MSM, they reported that a Hamas soldier that was captured said: “we prepared for over a year, the demonstrations in Israel encouraged us. It’s been 5 hours till (Israel) started shooting at us. We were all set up with 1,000 soldiers, we created 15 breaches in the border fence. We were surprised / shocked that IDF is not waiting for us”.
• 3 weeks ago, the reporter Zvi Yehezkeli – an expert on Arab matters and Hamas – showed that Hamas published video materials of their exact plan to penetrate and attack Israel, asking, like me – where is the Israeli intelligence? He also calls this surprise attack “bigger than Yom Kippur war”.
• Some numbers and details:
  • Today, envelope villages were being evacuated, many villages were ruined and burnt to the ground.
  • There were a few IDF naval operations to take down breeches from the sea of both Hamas and Islamic Gihad forces.
  • Hundreds of points were attacked by the IDF in Gaza today, including one tunnel.
  • The Israeli death toll is growing – with 700 deaths, recent reports talking about 800-1000.
  • More than 2100 people are injured – 300 severely injured. 280 are missing.
  • More than 100 people were kidnapped – including mums with babies, kids, old people and of course young men and women. Apparently amongst the kidnapped there are a few American citizens. 
  • Amongst the dead are 57 Israeli soldiers.
  • Over 400 terrorists were killed so far.
  • The Israeli mainstream media is also sharing with us today that each day of war costs us tax payers 25-40m dollars- which is a future hit in GDP.
• I mentioned the outdoor party yesterday, which had no less than 5,000 young people celebrating in nature. This event was horrifying as young adults were ambushed and slaughtered by the Hamas Terrorists. Some managed to escape by running in the fields and finding a hiding place, some were captured, tortured – we know of some young women that were raped – and later taken hostage.
  Many of these young adults are missing and their families are going crazy.
• Let’s look at another angle related to weapons: about 3 years ago, the IDF started a process of taking back weapons from people living in the Gaza envelope villages, under the excuse that these weapons are being stolen. A certain allowance of permitted weapons for each village was granted, which created even more anxiety and distrust amongst the citizens, who wish to protect themselves. 
• Next, let’s talk about the IDF human observers – their role is to be the eyes on the border fence. The IDF also operates many advanced weapon systems to take down anything coming close to the fence. But nothing was triggered.
  • Questions are raised on what happened to the observers? Horrible rumors said they were taken down as the first step by the terrorists, others say they did report the breeches, but the forces were not present to act on it.
  • Where were the forces? the Gaza Division was moved to the Judea and Samaria area. Entire battalions, some of the most professional in the IDF, were moved from the Gaza Strip to secure illegal outposts in Samaria and secure an MP in Hawara – a Palestinian village.
• Retired General Yitzhak Brik said that ‘Gadi Eisenkot – a former IDF Chief of General Staff – fought to hide his report on the IDF’s unpreparedness for war’. Brik said in April this year – and many times before- that Israel is not ready for an all-out war and laid the reasons.
• Up north, in the border with Lebanon, there were rockets fired today by Hezbollah to Israel towns. Citizens were called to evacuate their homes. This north front is next in the predicted line of attack.
• And lastly a point about Iran
  • Hamas spokesman told the BBC that Hamas received support from Iran for its surprise attacks on Israel. Iran has publicly praised the attacks.
  • Criticism on the Biden admin for unfreezing $6 billion dollars last month, allegedly for humanitarian aid, but the Iranian president explicitly said that they’ll use this money which is theirs for whatever they see fit.
• Thank you for watching and following me – your support over the past 24 hours is very important, I’m grateful for it is not taken for granted. See you soon.

Russian military historian and director of the Museum of Air Defense Forces, Yuri Knutov, said that the Hamas attack revealed the Iron Dome’s inefficiency.