Vantage | Why Israeli intelligence failed and how Netanyahu's making it worse

So it has been 19 days since Hamas attacked Israel, which led to the beginning of the on-going Israel-Hamas war, and one question still remains unanswered. How did it happen?

How did Hamas pull off the October 7 attack? How did Israel not see it coming? We still don’t have an answer. But we’ve been following some clues and reports. And here are four things that we’ve learned:

• Israel got warnings that it ignored
• Their own intelligence failed
• Once the attack happened, they failed to respond to the situation
• And now, Netanyahu and team are trying to bury all this

Let us tell you about Israel’s comprehensive failure, starting with the tip offs, they came from Egypt. Apparently, Cairo gave repeated warnings to Israel. An Egyptian intelligence official has been speaking about this. We don’t know his identity, but we understand that he often mediates- between Israel and Hamas. He says: The Israeli government was repeatedly warned. The message was this: “Hamas is planning something big”. And they did not leave it at that, they informed Netanyahu personally, reports say: Egypt’s intelligence minister, General Abbas Kamel, called Netanyahu. This call was made ten days before the Hamas attack. But Netanyahu denies it. His office insists no such call came from Egypt. So it is his word against the Egyptians. Meanwhile, more Israeli officials are speaking out. Like Amos Yadlin, former Israeli intelligence chief. He says: Netanyahu was distracted, he was pushing a controversial judicial reform, it plunged the country into chaos, there were widespread protests even military reservists had turned against the government and all this weakened Israel’s defences. So did the warnings from Egypt slip through the cracks? “Netanyahu got all the warnings — from his defence minister, from the chief of staff, from the head of intelligence, from the head of Shin Bet and from independent writers like me, like others — that this is weakening Israeli deterrence and endangering Israeli national security,” said Yaldin. So did the prime minister drop the ball? It is now a matter of investigation, but this was just the first lapse, Israel’s own intelligence failed to see what Hamas was up to, they used to have an aura of invincibility, the October 7 attack demolished it. Israeli spies were caught with their eyes closed. A preliminary assessment has found two lapses, communication and surveillance. Failure by intelligence officers to monitor key communication channels used by Palestinian attackers; over-reliance on border surveillance equipment that was easily shut down by attackers, allowing them to raid military bases and slay soldiers in their beds; clustering of commanders in a single border base that was overrun in the opening phase of the incursion, preventing communication with the rest of the armed forces; and a willingness to accept at face value assertions by Gazan military leaders, made on private channels that the Palestinians knew were being monitored by Israel, that they were not preparing for battle, were among the major lapses. Intelligence officials failed to track key channels, the ones that Hamas used, and the surveillance apparatus failed. Israel uses a lot of high-tech border surveillance equipment, like sensors and other espionage systems. Officials now say that overdependence on these systems cost them. Hamas exploited it, they shut down the systems, leaving the Israeli side blind, and then they launched the attacks. Then came another lapse, the military failed to respond. The Israeli military has done an internal review, and they found two gaps, first, when the Hamas attack began, the Israeli army brass was clustered at a base near Gaza, all the top leaders converged there, and this slowed their response, they could not engage effectively with their teams. Gap number two, Israel underestimated Hamas, Israel tracks Hamas activities in Gaza. It listens into their conversations, and reports say, they did pick up some chatter, statements like: “We are not preparing for battle”. They heard Hamas leaders saying this, this should have raised red flags. But the Israelis took these statements at face value. It proved to be disastrous. Now all of this is being probed. A government commission of inquiry will oversee the investigation. Reports say Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to “rig the jury”, and dictate who gets to sit on the panel, his critics say, he is “manipulating the commission”. His ratings are falling, there are calls for him to resign. This is a case study for the whole world, when it comes to security, you cannot afford complacency. Domestic politics cannot be allowed to compromise national security. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .