2024-04-04 19:15:58
The former head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Division, Amos Malka, reviewed the failures that led to the October 7 attack, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior officials of bearing great responsibility for this attack.
Malka said in statements on Tuesday, reported by the Jerusalem Post, that 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.
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.
Israel responded with an air and ground operation in the Gaza Strip that killed and injured thousands. The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced on Tuesday that the death toll in the Gaza Strip had risen to 32,916 people since the start of the war.
Malka said that Netanyahu informed a Knesset committee, 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 that 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 terrorist on the lists of 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 meant that senior leaders such as the chief of staff and Netanyahu were not aware of these warnings.
He also pointed to warnings received by Netanyahu that Israel’s enemies, from Iran to Hezbollah to Hamas, were all viewing the Israeli army as becoming weaker due to the battles for judicial reform, and threats of reservists’ withdrawal from service.
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2024-04-04 19:15:58