Analysis: Israel’s misjudgment of Hamas caused the October 7 intelligence failure
November 10, 2023 4 Comments
SINCE OCTOBER 7, WHEN Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel, many more details about the intelligence failure have emerged. It appears that Israeli intelligence officials have warned for years about military exercises held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which have included practice raids on cities deep inside Israel. However, the Israel Military Intelligence (IMI) did not heed to the warnings, because it considered Hamas operationally incapable of carrying out such raids. Instead, the IMI estimated that the Hamas leadership aimed to arrive at a settlement with Israel. That seems like the result of a highly successful disinformation operation, which added significantly to the effectiveness of the sudden attack on Israel on October 7.
It now appears that several months after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Operation Guardian of the Walls, which targeted Hamas in the Gaza Strip in May of 2021, Hamas began to train for a large-scale operation against Israel. However, the IMI estimated that Hamas was not capable of attacking a
large number of settlements simultaneously. It also believed that such an operation would go against the spirit of Hamas leadership’s spirit intention to settle with Israel.
As early as 2022, the IMI had analyzed videos of Hamas’ military exercises, which Hamas itself had made available on social media networks. Meanwhile, the intelligence information that emerged from the Gaza Strip showed that the professionalization of Hamas’ military arm, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, was improving. However, IMI officials rejected the need to build an operative response to the mass-attack scenario that these exercises pointed to, because they saw them simply as exercises.
Israeli intelligence also analyzed the communications discourse between the commanders of Hamas, which it had acquired through intercepts. It purportedly indicated that Hamas intended to carry out raids on Israeli communities located near the fence between Israel and Gaza, but also on targets located deeper inside Israel. The communications discourse also indicated that such attacks could occur, not only using tunnels, but with incursions above ground and even through aerial methods.
One of the methods that Hamas trained on, and one that was known to Israeli intelligence, focused on disabling the highly sophisticated observation posts, sensors and remote-controlled machine guns, which Israel has installed along the border fence with the Gaza Strip. The purpose of these exercises was to enable an attack on the fence and overtake it these sophisticated tools with Hamas operatives, thus effectively blinding the Israeli forces. However, Israeli authorities made no effort to prepare for such a scenario by protecting these installations.
The broad picture that is emerging raises serious questions about why the IDF did not take a reasonable course of action against Hamas’ operational plan —and why it failed to do so despite being aware of the intensity of the Hamas exercises, and despite being aware of the group’s stated intentions. 
Indeed, a preventive course of action should have been in place even in the absence of specific intelligence warnings —if only to enable the IDF to repel a surprise attack by Hamas. There was no need to estimate what Hamas would do in order to prepare for a surprise attack.
Yet it is now patently obvious that there was ample intelligence about Hamas’ intentions. The latter were both apparent and known. Even without the wisdom of hindsight, it is clear there was enough intelligence to enable Israel to act in a timely manner against Hamas’ plan. Yet Israel severely misjudged Hamas’ intentions. In retrospect, it appears that ample intelligence about Hamas’ intentions had been gathered, that the IMI and Shin Bet were severely underprepared for a surprise attack, that the precise details of Hamas’ attack were missed, and that Hamas’ intentions were misjudged. These are the reasons why Israel was caught unprepared and suffered a catastrophic surprise on October 7.
► Author: Dr. Avner Barnea | Date: 10 November 2023 | Permalink
Dr. Avner Barnea is research fellow at the National Security Studies Center of the University of Haifa in Israel. He served as a senior officer in the Israel Security Agency (ISA). He is the author of We Never Expected That: A Comparative Study of Failures in National and Business Intelligence (Lexington Books, 2021).
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In military staff colleges and security intelligence schools one is taught to pose the question “so what” to further analyze intelligence factors.
My “so what’s” to this solid article include?
– hubris throughout the military, political, security and intelligence communities? Dependence on technological situational awareness / intelligence gathering? If this was the case, what were the immediate actions when there was a sudden loss of real time data?
– how was the intelligence evaluated, and what recommendations were made up the leadership chain?
– was the highest level of leadership too preoccupied with domestic issues?
– was Hamas just plain smarter that Israel in its planning? 50 years less a day after the outbreak of the 1973 war did Israeli security just shut down for Shabbat and the holiday?
– how superior was Hamas’ Intelligence gathering? And spreading of mis- and disinformation?
– I would like to ignore any conspiracy theories – no matter what the motivation, I cannot accept IMI, Shin Bet, Mossad, the IDF and civilian government conspiring to permit such an attack – even if they didn’t expect it to succeed.
Why did US satellites miss the movement of so many missiles? No electronic chatter? Why were no sanctions allowed for Al Sadr since 2003? Is there an advantage to a million man army in Iraq against Israel? Did the greatest transfer of wealth in history from the US to Iran help Israel? Did cutting US oil while lifting oil sanctions giving 70 to 100 billion dollars to Iran help Israel?
In this complex intelligence failure one would think IMI is solely to blame. It would appear from the article that the author’s former employer, the Israel Security Agency (ISA) (aka Shin Bet or Shabak) is blameless in failing to collect or analyze much needed intelligence prior to the Hamas operation. Shin Bet’s Arab Department is, inter alia, responsible for counterterrorism in Gaza. Shin Bet has a reputation for bugging key conference rooms in Gaza. What happened?
Maybe Israel’s National Security Council should carry some blame, if the buck stops there? Or does that run the risk of placing blame too close to Netanyahu? But
Netanyahu is seen as Israel’s permanent, natural Prime Minister, above reproach.
The conclusion is absolutely clear; the Israeli Likud (and absolutely batshit crazy Religious Zionist Party) wanted (nay, needed) a casus belli, primarily to protect Netanyahu from almost certain loss of government and imprisonment. The mega protests in early 2023 showed that the tenuous grip of the conservatives is waning.
What they needed was a war.
As this article points out it was clear Aman, Unit 8200 and Shin Bet knew Hamas was preparing for a major incursion. However what they would have easily identified that was outside of attacks on civilians the attacks would do little to destroy let alone damage Israeli industrial and economic sectors. It would do nothing to disable the Israeli military.
Israel’s existence was not threatened by these attacks.
Instead what it did was force Israel, the millions who actively were protesting and voting against Likud and its crazies, to unify under Netanyahu whilst he and his absolutely homophobic, racist and vile partners ordered the Israeli military to steamroll Hamas and 2 million Palestinians (of which 1.4m didn’t even vote for).
The government allowing those those left wing idiots to have a rave next to the bloody fence was brilliant. Probably miminised the attacks on the kibbutz’s and yet eitherway Israeli media/marketing amplified a massive amount of disinformation and misinformation about these attacks implying Israel’s existence was threaten.
So what we have is a clear justification to destroy Gaza whilst pretending that their not making the region uninhabitable.
That’s why their targeting hospitals and other civilian infrastructure. Not just because Hamas has tunnels under them but because Gaza will become a wasteland without them.