Last week, the Israeli army published the results of its investigation into the October 7 failures, but it turned out yesterday, Friday, that what the army published about its investigations was a small part of the results of the investigations. The results show that the “Al-Aqsa Flood” attack, on October 7, 2023, was carried out on land, at sea and in the air, during which Hamas forces also used gliders to cross the security fence surrounding the Gaza Strip.

A report published by Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper yesterday, Friday, shows that the failures of the Israeli army on October 7 and the period preceding the day of the attack were enormous, and in all branches of the Israeli army, especially in the intelligence field, according to what the Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, Herzi Halevi, said during a closed meeting with the participation of the commander of the Southern Command and the heads of the local authorities in the "Gaza envelope", before the end of his term, this week.

"We viewed Hamas as a limited military force, and we did not see a scenario of a large-scale surprise attack as a realistic scenario. If something like that happened, we would have received advance intelligence warning about it. Intelligence played a role in this war in the great failure. We wanted to receive advance warning, and we wanted to know from the intelligence that could have changed the reality. We did not," Halevy was quoted as saying by the newspaper. The head of the Southern Command, Yaron Finkelman, added during the meeting that military intelligence said that an attack by Hamas "will not happen in the immediate time frame."

According to the newspaper, during a discussion he held at 4:00 a.m. on October 7, Halevy believed that intelligence was wrong. The summary of the discussion reads, "At the beginning of his remarks, the Chief of Staff stressed that what was required at this stage was to delve into the cause of the events (i.e., indications of Hamas's actions), without relying on concepts that would make Hamas's initiative to attack illogical."

Halevi ordered the air force to "examine targets for a rapid response in the event of Hamas attack activity at dawn." The newspaper reported that Halevi's order was not carried out, and that Halevi did not order Israeli forces on the fence surrounding the Strip to raise their alert status. He did, however, instruct other intelligence agencies to review their information and hold further discussions in the morning.

"October 7th is a deadly disease that spread in the army."

While presenting the results of the investigations to the Israeli army officers last week, the commander of Unit 8200, Yossi Shariel, said that “October 7 is not an incident, but rather a terminal illness that has spread throughout the army. Contrary to the victory over Hezbollah and the claim that the entire Israeli army was victorious, the investigations (about October 7) suddenly show that the entire problem is intelligence.”

The Israeli army sought to mislead the public about the results of the investigations. Although the investigations’ results extended to thousands of pages, the army provided military correspondents with a 15-page summary of them, and dictated to the correspondents to write in their reports “in the name of the correspondent” that the investigations were the result of “continuous and in-depth work whose compass is the truth for the purpose of study and correction.”

Among the things that the army did not reveal to the public when publishing its investigations was that during the night of October 7, information was received indicating Hamas movements in the Gaza Strip. The Air Force Intelligence Unit was aware of a Hamas document, entitled “Jericho Wall,” which included details of a large-scale Hamas attack. Unit 8200 had intercepted it in April 2022, and a senior Air Force representative had seen it during discussions in the army’s Southern Command, held on September 3, 2023, during which it was said that there was a problem with the quality of intelligence in Gaza, and that “Hamas will strike when it believes it serves it.”

The IDF concealed from the public in its summary of the investigation findings that “the air force failed to intercept the glider incursion of Hamas’ elite fighters, or to shoot down Hamas drones that destroyed the ‘see and shoot’ sites on the Gaza border.” The IDF also concealed from the public that “the Iron Dome batteries failed to intercept half of the rockets fired from Gaza.”

The investigation, which was not included in the summary published by the army, according to the newspaper, stated that regarding the gliders and drones launched by Hamas, “the air force did not carry out the mission of defending the country’s skies.” The army did not mention the investigation’s findings that the air force attacked targets in the Gaza Strip that were present in the combat aircraft’s computer software, under the “Sword of Damocles” plan, even though it had no connection to the events of October 7, and while Hamas’s elite forces had already begun their attack inside Israel.

The investigations, which the army did not publish, confirmed that "the navy did not fulfill its defense mission at sea," and revealed that Hamas fighters sought to penetrate southern Israel from the sea with seven boats, and that the navy targeted five of them, while two reached the "Zikim" beach and Hamas elements seized a "Savannah" military vehicle and continued their attack in the "Gaza envelope." The newspaper indicated that the investigations into the navy were not presented to army officers when they were informed of their results.

"Where did the failure begin?"

Halevy asked the team investigating the failure to start in 2018, but the team began in 2002. In 2017, then-IDF Chief of Staff and current MK Gadi Eisenkot drew up a plan titled “Strategic Operational Framework for War in the Gaza Strip,” which included three scenarios that could lead to war against Gaza: Hamas initiating a surprise attack; the situation deteriorating as a result of a gradual escalation against Hamas; or Israel initiating a preemptive attack. The team found that the scenario of Hamas initiating a surprise attack, such as the one that occurred on October 7, was removed from Eisenkot’s plan.

In its speech, the Israeli army replaced the phrase “advance warning” with the phrase “intelligence superiority,” which is based on high intelligence capabilities that can know what is happening and any movement at any time. One of the reasons for the feeling of “intelligence superiority” is the so-called “secret tool,” which is a set of technological and operational capabilities aimed at reaching Hamas’s secrets. However, the army’s investigations confirmed that the “secret tool” did not provide advance warning of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” attack.

The investigation team also did not find any document or intelligence assessment in the Military Intelligence Division, the Southern Command, or the Gaza Division, stating that “Hamas is deterred.” This expression “seemed to appear out of nowhere, and was established as a fact, even in the political establishment.”

The army’s investigations into October 7 revealed that the aggression on Gaza in May 2021 created a perception in Israel that distorted reality. The perception has taken root in the security establishment and the political establishment in Israel, including Netanyahu, that this aggression ended with a fatal blow to Hamas, and that it will be deterred for many years.

But Hamas's perception of the results of this battle was the opposite. Hamas even considered that it had achieved a great accomplishment, according to the results of the army's investigations. It succeeded in launching rocket attacks, and caused rockets to be fired from Syria and Lebanon, and there was a state of turmoil in the mixed cities in Israel. The Israeli army conducted three investigations following this battle, which showed that "the success of the Israeli army in it may be a story told by the army and politicians, but in reality, the story was somewhat different."

Mossad also participated in the October 7 failure, as it was unable to detect “the resistance axis’ preparations for the attack.” Hamas’s sense of the May 2021 battle strengthened its ties with Iran and Hezbollah, and the leaders of the resistance axis began to crystallize what would later be described as a “sense of ability” to launch a large-scale attack. “Contacts began to take place between Gaza, Tehran and Beirut in order to build plans for a joint attack. Mossad completely failed to detect them.”