2024-04-02T13:43:17+00:00
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/ The former head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Division, Amos Malka, revealed on Tuesday the reasons for the failures that led to the attack of last October 7.
Malka said in statements reported by the Jerusalem Post newspaper, “The failure to prevent the attack was due to the defense establishment and political leaders’ obsession with the tunnel threats built by Hamas, the difficulty of intelligence reports reaching senior officials, and the impact of the judicial reform plan on the strength of the military establishment.”
Malka added, “Netanyahu informed a committee in the Knesset, in 2017, of a Hamas plan to penetrate Israeli territory using tunnel warfare, accusing Netanyahu of being obsessed with the tunnel issue and ignoring other means by which the movement could threaten Israel, including a ground invasion.”
The former senior official said, “The Israeli army and the political establishment were convinced that one of the reasons that prompted Hamas to build cross-border attack tunnels was that the movement, which was listed as a terrorist organization by several countries, had completely abandoned the idea of carrying out operations above the ground.”
He also noted that “much of the important intelligence collected by observers and lower-ranking intelligence officers was never transferred to the IDF or senior political decision-makers, which means that senior leaders such as the Chief of Staff and Netanyahu were not aware of these warnings.”
He also pointed out that “warnings reached Netanyahu that Israel’s enemies, from Iran to Hezbollah to Hamas, were all looking at the Israeli army as having become weaker due to the battles for judicial reform, and the threats of reserve soldiers to leave the service.”
The attack occurred on October 7, when Hamas militants penetrated the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing about 1,200 people and taking 253 hostage under the cover of rockets that were fired at Israeli towns and cities.
The army responded with an air and ground operation in the Gaza Strip, killing and wounding thousands. On Tuesday, the Hamas Ministry of Health announced that the death toll in the Gaza Strip had risen to 32,916 dead since the start of the war.