Israeli military misread Hamas, was unprepared for Oct 7 raids, says IDF

The Israel Defence Forces on Thursday released its top-level investigation on the devastating October 7 attack, admitting that the military “misread” Hamas for years. The surprise attack from the Palestinian group in southern Israel eventually triggered the 15-month-long Israel-Hamas war.

The investigation confirmed that around 5,000 Hamas-led terrorists from the Gaza Strip infiltrated Israel on October 7, 2023, carrying out all sorts of rampage in the region. In the report, the Israel Defence Force (IDF) admitted that it struggled to mount a solid response, bases closer to the border overran, and the chain of command broke amid the chaos.

The attack eventually claimed the lives of 1,200 people in Israel, with another 251 people kidnapped, and much of the area was left devastated. In the report, the IDF made it clear that most of the victims of the attack were civilians.

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IDF pinpoints the military’s failure for years

The material released by the IDF also underlined the colossal failure of the military in monitoring Hamas for years. The body noted that these failures were only noticed months after the invasion and slaughter. It was also found that the Israeli military’s Gaza Division, the regional unit responsible for the Strip and for protecting southern Israel, was “defeated” for several hours. The chaos and confusion eventually slowed the fighting for the day.

One of the key takeaways from the report was IDF’s “perception” probe that stated that before the Oct 7 attack, it was believed that the Hamas terror group in Gaza did not pose a significant threat to Israel.

The IDF was under the impression that the Palestinian group was uninterested in a large-scale war and that its tunnel networks were also undermined.

Failure in intelligence assessment of Hamas since 2014

Apart from this, the “intelligence assessment” investigation found that the Military Intelligence Directorate received information and plans outlining Hamas’s intent to launch a wide-scale attack against Israel. However, they did not act upon it and dismissed it, referring to it as “unrealistic and unfeasible”.

The probe argued that instead of acting upon it, the Military Intelligence Directorate falsely assumed that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was a pragmatist who was not seeking a major escalation with Israel and that the terror group viewed its 2021 war with Israel as a failure. The probe suggested that the Israeli military was concerned about Hamas’s rocket-firing capabilities rather than a full-scale ground invasion.

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The investigation refrains from commenting on political leadership

The probe was aimed at drawing operational conclusions for the IDF. Hence, it did not look into the policies and political leadership failures. This way, the investigative team also managed to avoid any fight with government leaders, who have insisted that investigations must wait until after the end of the war against Hamas.

In addition to four main topics, the IDF investigated 41 separate battles and major incidents that took place during the October 7 attack. The Israeli military also set up a website with a Hebrew link where the findings will be made available after they are presented. To the authorities.