“Pearl Harbor” for Israel: why the intelligence services did not prevent the Hamas attack

The new war in which Israel found itself involved has just begun. But now many ordinary people and experienced analysts are asking the question: how is it that the vaunted Israeli security forces and intelligence services did not prevent the catastrophe, when militants of the Palestinian Hamas movement were traveling around cities and kibbutzim, killing citizens and capturing people.

“The militants attacked from air, sea and land,” writes CNN analysis author Joshua Berlinger. “They shot at civilians, took hostages and forced families to barricade themselves indoors, fearing for their lives.

A day that began in the early morning with the sound of air raid sirens turned by afternoon into one of the worst attacks Israel has known in its 75 years of existence. The attackers from Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls the impoverished and densely populated Gaza Strip, had killed hundreds of people and wounded hundreds more by nightfall.”

“While Israel is no stranger to terrorist attacks, Saturday’s attack was unprecedented, not least because of the lack of warning,” says Joshua Berlinger. — Israel’s military was caught off guard Saturday, despite decades of the country becoming a technology powerhouse that boasts one of the world’s most impressive militaries and a leading intelligence agency.

There are many questions for the Israeli authorities. More than 17 years have passed since an Israeli soldier was captured in an attack on Israeli territory. And Israel has not seen this kind of infiltration of military bases, cities and kibbutzim since the long-distance fighting of the 1948 War of Independence. How could a terrorist group from one of the poorest enclaves in the world carry out such a devastating attack?”

“The whole system is down. It’s not just one component. It is an entire defense architecture that has obviously failed to provide the necessary protection to Israeli civilians,” admits Jonathan Conricus, a former international spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces. “This is a Pearl Harbor type moment for Israel, where before today there was one reality, and then there will be another reality after today.”

The IDF has repeatedly dodged questions about whether Saturday’s events were an intelligence failure. Military representative Lieutenant Colonel. Richard Hecht told CNN that Israel is focused on the current fight and protecting civilian lives.

“We’ll talk later about what happened from an intelligence perspective,” Hecht said.

Whether by coincidence or design, the attacks occurred the day after the 50th anniversary of another unforeseen conflict, when a coalition of Arab states launched a surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, in 1973 (the so-called Yom Kippur War).

Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, it has spent billions of dollars securing the border from attacks. The Jewish state strikes any weapons fired from Gaza into Israel and stops terrorist attempts to cross the border by air or underground using tunnels. To stop the rocket attacks, Israel used the Iron Dome, an effective missile defense system developed with the assistance of the United States.

Israel also spent hundreds of millions of dollars building a smart border system with sensors and underground walls, which was completed in late 2021, according to Reuters.

Israeli officials will almost certainly figure out how, where and why those systems failed on Saturday. As of Saturday morning, Israel said Hamas had fired 2,200 rockets, although it did not release figures on how many had been intercepted. Officials would not comment on whether the border fence had done its job.

Aaron David Miller, a former State Department negotiator on Middle East issues, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that Israeli communities near Gaza are “obviously not adequately protected.”

“I just don’t think the Israelis saw it coming,” Miller said.

Israel’s response will likely involve more than just beefing up border troops. The Israel Defense Forces have already begun carrying out airstrikes in Gaza against Hamas infrastructure, killing and injuring hundreds of people.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country would “return fire on a scale the enemy has never known,” while the top official in charge of the Palestinian territories, Major General Ghassan Alian, said Hamas had “opened the gates of hell.” “

Conricus, the former IDF spokesman, said Saturday’s events would force Israel to back up that rhetoric and respond “in a way it has never responded before.”