Israel releases findings of internal probe into October 7 intelligence disaster
August 12, 2024 17 Comments
THE OFFICIAL INTERNAL INVESTIGATION into the performance of Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate (MID) during the run-up to the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, has been released. Known as The Road to War, the report addresses the central question of: how did the MID –the main military intelligence body of the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF– miss all the signs of the pending Hamas attack, and how did all the available warnings go unheeded?
To compline the report, the Intelligence Directorate of the IDF investigated how the most significant intelligence failure in the history of the State of Israel occurred, as well as how the MID analysts and other members of the intelligence community failed to notice the attack that Hamas had been planning.
According to the findings of the investigation, Hamas began planning its attack between seven and eight years ago, which means that Israeli intelligence should have been able to observe the relevant warnings as early as 2016. However, the IDF’s intelligence division missed the early signs.
It appears that the MID assumed Hamas had been deterred by Israel. There was also a prevailing assumption that the group’s military wing, led by Yahya Sinwar, had settled on improving the economic situation of Gaza Strip residents while securing its internal sovereign status in the Gaza Strip. The MID intelligence analysts were uniformly immersed in the concept that Hamas “did not want to and could not” go to war against Israel.
The main findings of the investigation are as follows: Read more of this post
THE TARGETED KILLING OF Hassan Mahdawi, a high-ranking member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the commander of the Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon, was carried out by Israel on April 1, 2024. The actual assassination was based on precise operational intelligence, while Israel’s assessment of Iran’s response was wrong.
ON MARCH 23, CHANNEL 12 of Israeli television aired a remarkable interview with Sassi Elya, the former director of technology at the Israel Security Agency (ISA). Better known by the acronyms Shin Bet or Shabak, the ISA is Israel’s domestic security service. The interview had initially been scheduled for broadcast as part of the evening news on October 7, 2023. However, its airing was canceled due to the attack on Israel by Hamas, which occurred that morning.
SINCE OCTOBER 7, 2024, when Israel was caught off guard by a sudden and highly damaging attack from Hamas, more information has surfaced regarding why there was no prior warning about the attack and the failures of Israeli intelligence in this regard.
capabilities. Another important insight is that the counterintelligence structures inside Hamas were successful in preventing Israeli intelligence from recruiting agents who were close enough to Sinwar to be able to alert Israel about the impending attack. Furthermore, Israel’s collection and analysis of signals intelligence was unproductive, possibly because Hamas was successful in countering Israel’s ability to produce effective intelligence from signals intercepts.
A RETIRED SENIOR MOSSAD official has alleged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly ignored, and even frustrated, efforts to stop the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars to Hamas. This inaction may have enabled the Palestinian militant group to plan, organize and execute Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, which killed over 1400 Israelis on October 7, 2023, and sparked the current war between Israel and Hamas.
THE OCTOBER 7 ATTACK on Israel was a total surprise. There was no warning. There were very few signs of a possible attack. Israeli intelligence evaluated these signs as elements of a routine military exercise by Hamas, and even assessed them as parts of an imaginary scenario. It therefore gave no warning to those Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) units that were stationed on the border with Gaza. Meanwhile, what we know about the intelligence failure of October 7 will likely pale before what the commission of inquiry will reveal once it is established. That was precisely what happened in the case of the Agranat Commission of Inquiry, which made significant revelations while investigating the intelligence failings of the IDF in the run up to the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
time, in the first two days of the conflict the IDF was confused and acted without direction, in the apparent absence of relevant action plans for what to do in the event of a massive invasion. The IDF was clearly not ready for such a scenario.
for those conclusions to become public. What is to be done in the meantime? There is public pressure to launch the inquiry soon.
MIDDLE EAST OBSERVERS WERE hardly surprised by yesterday’s news of the apparent assassination of Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in Lebanon. Not only was al-Arouri a 
Yesterday’s assassination at the very heart of Hezbollah’s lair was nothing short of a demonstration of the Mossad’s competency in special operations.
IT HAS BECOME CLEAR that Hamas had up-to-date intelligence on Israeli targets prior to the attack on October 7, 2023, the largest and most devastating terrorist attack in Israel’s history. Hamas did not have access to clandestine information sources but rather relied on open-source intelligence (OSINT) to understand the structure and weaknesses of Israel’s defense system along the border fence. In addition to publicly available maps, Hamas meticulously gathered online intelligence about specific sites within the Israeli communities near the Gaza Strip.
interests of national security, the public’s ‘right to know’ purview is substantial. Thus, significant amounts of information are available online.
the Israeli Military Intelligence was dissolved, for reasons that remain to be investigated. CNN was among many news outlets that have 
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.
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.
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.
ARGUABLY NO COUNTRY BENEFITED more from the American invasion of Iraq than the Islamic Republic of Iran. In a war that lasted over a decade, Washington spent over 
branch of the Iranian Armed Forces that protects and promotes the ideological inheritance of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
SEVERAL DAYS HAVE PASSED since October 7, the day when Hamas stunned Israel with a surprise attack against several settlements near the Gaza border. It is now clear that Israeli intelligence was in possession of warning indicators about the attack, and that these indicators were misjudged.
forwarded to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office. The Israeli newspaper that 
THE COMPARISON BETWEEN THE October 2023 attack on Israel and the Yom Kippur War is reasonable. We still have an obscured perspective on what happened on October 7. But even this partial picture makes it possible to draw a preliminary comparison. Undoubtedly, there is no precedent for such a monumental failure in the history of Israeli intelligence.
for the professionalism and resilience of the IDF, which was there in 1973, continues to exist.
THE HAMAS-LED OPERATION al-Aqsa Flood, which began on October 7, marked the first large-scale conflict within the borders of Israel since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. However, unlike the coalition of Arab armies it faced in 1948, Israel now confronts an alliance of sub-state groups. Led by Hamas’ military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, this alliance includes the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad and a number of secular groups, such as the Fatah-aligned al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP).
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Is Israel preparing to carry out intelligence operations on US soil?
August 26, 2024 by intelNews 2 Comments
According to The Marker report, the alleged meeting between Minister Chikli and the CEO of Black Cube, Dan Zorla, took place in a private residence in Herzliya near Tel Aviv. Minister Chikli was personally involved in the discussions with Black Cube, with the understanding that intelligence operations carried out by the firm on American soil would not be officially attributed to the State of Israel. However, it is unclear whether such intelligence operations were indeed authorized to proceed.
The organization against which Chikli reportedly asked Black Cube to target is “Students for Justice in Palestine”. The group has staged numerous demonstrations on university campuses across the United States since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last October.
The alleged use of a private intelligence company against an American-based organization, whose leaders are primarily American citizens, may be perceived as a violation of American sovereignty. Such an activity could further-damage the relationship between Israel and the American government and stigmatize Israel’s image among the American public.
Following the publication of The Marker report, the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs claimed the proposal for the intelligence operation had been initiated by Black Cube and that Ministry officials ultimately rejected it. Still, at least three different sources appear to confirm the exact opposite —namely, that the spying initiative was prompted by the Ministry. Black Cube reportedly rejected it based on concerns that such a high-risk operation could damage the company’s standing with the United States government and harm its ability to do business on American soil in the future.
An official statement issued by the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs said: “Since the beginning of the war, the ministry has held meetings with dozens of organizations seeking to assist the efforts of the State of Israel in various fields. At the company’s [Black Cube’s] request, a meeting was held with the ministry’s professional echelon, and at the end of it, it was decided not to proceed with any engagement”. Read more of this post
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Amichai Chikli, Black Cube, Dan Zorla, Israel, News, Students for Justice in Palestine, United States