Many big questions regarding the attack near the Megiddo junction remain unsolved, and not only due to the censorship aspects. The deep gaps in intelligence that the IDF had in this incident make it difficult even now, after an Israeli citizen was seriously injured in the attack, to form a basic situational picture.
It is recommended that Defense Minister Yoav Galant and Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi treat this intelligence gap seriously as an omission and not as a one-off problem. Not for the purpose of beheading, dismissals and punishment, but mainly for a critical examination of the issue of deep intelligence and not only in the context of the latest incident.
It seems that the security system has something to learn regarding the operation patterns, the intelligence concepts and the methods of analyzing the enemy on the Lebanese side. Mainly against Hezbollah, but also against the Palestinian terrorist organizations in the refugee camps in southern Lebanon and the use that Hezbollah makes of them, in collaborations that are sometimes designed to obscure its involvement.
At a relatively low price compared to the killing potential at the hands of the terrorist, the security establishment received a golden opportunity to understand a thing or two about the IDF’s level of preparedness for much more dangerous and serious scenarios, such as a surprise raid by Hizbollah’s Radwan companies into Israeli territory and an attempted attack on a settlement or camp military.
Meanwhile, one must of course investigate in depth how one terrorist, in a planned single operation, managed to penetrate Israel while exploiting the weak points along the border, armed from head to toe with a long weapon, a gun, a powerful explosive device, an explosive belt and ammunition. How he crossed the border and entered deep into Israeli territory with alarming ease, while slipping under the radar of the IDF and intelligence.
The IDF failed to prevent the terrorist’s infiltration from Lebanon, despite the existence of general warnings before the attack took place. Be that as it may, the main problem in this incident is first of all the large intelligence gap that preceded the failure to stop the terrorist on the border line before he entered Israel. In incidents of this type it is easy It is more apparent to point out the operational failures and gaps in the failure to prevent infiltration into Israeli territory, but this is only the end point. The in-depth examination should really deal with intelligence, and for the purpose of examining it there is also room to examine the involvement of veteran and experienced officials who are not currently in the system, and will be able to look at the data from a different perspective which is not under conceptions.
This is not the first time that the security establishment has been surprised in recent years and finds itself in a gap in the intelligence coverage in Lebanon. Rocket fire by Palestinian terrorist organizations that repeated itself in 2021 revealed an intelligence gap in covering the activities of these organizations in the refugee camps in southern Lebanon.
This tension eventually ended with a symbolic signal attack by Israeli fighter jets. Israel sent messages to Hezbollah that it was not the address, but the latter did not respond in accordance with the intelligence estimates and fired a barrage of 19 rockets near the IDF positions on Mount Dov, an action that surprised Israel.
The explosion of the cargo on Route 65 near the Megiddo junction raises quite a few questions. For example, why there and not closer to the border or at a point where there were many civilians or soldiers. The terrorist’s infiltration into Israeli territory, the large amount of equipment he had on him, his ability to orient himself in Israeli territory when at this stage there are no suspects of assisting the terrorist in our territory, signal that this is a single action by a professionally trained terrorist.
The choice to move more than 70 kilometers from the border to the Megiddo junction is a move that seemingly has no logical explanation, except perhaps an attempt to glorify the mental achievement, when the perpetrator of the attack managed to penetrate deep into Israel’s territory, and was not satisfied with choosing a target near the border.
It is difficult to see at this stage a terrorist organization other than Hezbollah that is capable of planning and carrying out an operation of this type. Even when it is carried out in the field by one person, carrying out an attack with characteristics of this type requires the training and preparations of a serious terrorist organization.
Changing the rules of the game?
Almost 11 hours after the attack took place, IDF fighters managed to close a circle on the terrorist and eliminate him around 5:00 PM, when he was only 2 km away from the border.
If he had succeeded in returning to the territory of Lebanon in peace, even without killing Israelis, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah could have registered an extraordinary intellectual achievement. Even so, Israel faces a very complex problem, Lebanon’s equation is not similar to that of Gaza and certainly not that of Syria.
A war scenario in Lebanon is in no way similar to another round of fighting against Hamas in Gaza, and hence the decision to continue maintaining the media blackout for two days stemmed in part from the need to curb a possible escalation and distance the decision from the time of the attack itself, and this as long as it is not determined on the basis of intelligence indications that Hezbollah is indeed standing behind the attack. It is almost completely clear that, as always in the test of the result, if there had been many casualties in the attack, the space of Israeli ambiguity would not have been relevant and the question of the response would not have been in doubt.
Another big question in this context concerns the activation of the load on a single vehicle that even drove on the opposite side of the curb where the load was placed. It could be a professional mistake, and reasonable logic should have apparently pointed to a failed execution, when luckily, at the moment of truth, the terrorist made a mistake in the way he activated the charge.
But alongside this there is another possibility, as has already been the case in the past on the part of Hezbollah, who may have tried to redefine the boundaries of the game this time as well, but carefully and without leading Lebanon to war in the event that the result of the attack was many deaths in Israel. Also, the question of why the terrorist did not use the weapon he was carrying or the explosive belt and moved back towards the border, will only be answered later, or perhaps will remain unanswered.
The dilemma in the security system regarding the response is understandable. As someone who does not bear responsibility, I have no intention of determining whether we should have attacked Lebanon immediately or waited until the work was clarified. But on the other hand, the long blackout and severe censorship that increased the pressure on the Israeli side, lasted far too long. Meanwhile, on the other side, Hezbollah and Nasrallah benefit from the chaos as those who maintain a strong deterrence against Israel, which itself operates in an area of ambiguity, only this time, compared to the attributed activity in Syria, Israel was the attacked party.
Hezbollah knows the truth very well: in recent years it has suffered heavy blows from the IDF. If it degenerates Lebanon into a war against Israel, it will lead it to disaster, especially in view of the country’s bankruptcy, which is left without any future. And yet, despite the multitude of internal problems, it becomes clear that Nasrallah Ready to play with new reaction equations.
Many actions are attributed to Israel against the axis of Iran and Hezbollah in Syria and in other areas of the Middle East as part of the Air Force. Most of them are from the air, but it can be estimated that in the small part of them secret commando operations were carried out that remained in complete darkness. This being the case, there is also the possibility of revenge in an attack in the heart of Israel by the Iranian Quds Force or Hezbollah in Lebanon is always taken into account.
But this time, the question of timing has great significance in the shadow of the deep crisis in Israel. When a rocket is fired from the Gaza Strip, Israel attacks Hamas as the sovereign responsible, even if it did not carry out the shooting. When a serious attack is carried out from Lebanon in the heart of Israel, every step and action is scrutinized, including waiting to determine if Hezbollah is behind the attack, after which there is a deep dilemma of how to respond without degenerating into a war in the north.
Hence the problem. One can understand the range of considerations of the senior echelon, the defense minister and the prime minister to avoid degenerating into a war against Hezbollah, but it cannot be ignored that a lack of military response also creates problems, especially at a time when the enemies of the state are re-examining the borders in the face of the deep crisis in Israel.
priorities
In the crazy pace of the news, the president’s compromise proposal, which seems to have been torpedoed by the coalition at record speed, quickly pushed back the details of the disclosure of the event, which on normal days would have remained in the headlines for days. But these are not ordinary days, as the Chief of Staff said on the eve of revealing the initial details on Wednesday, before the president’s outline was published: “We are looking at a multi-aspect challenge. He has been less in recent years. We want to be ready for it, and that means we need a regular army and a very ready reserve. Our enemies look and say, maybe at a time like this we can see for a moment that there is an opportunity for weakness here.”
On the eve of Ramadan and the tensions in the Palestinian arena, the continuation of Iran’s race towards nuclear power and now the tensions with Hezbollah, aside from other problems in relations with the US and the fear of an economic crisis – it seems that there is no sign that the disclosure of the first findings of an attack in which there are also serious omissions and failures to learn from, was carried out in close proximity For the publication of the mediation compromise of the president of the country, which pushed aside the engagement in this serious security incident.
And one deep question remains as a weight. How the order of priorities here has completely reversed in just two months, both on the side supporting the legal reform and on the side opposing the legal revolution. In the meantime, so many vectors related to the national security of the State of Israel clearly indicate – from a political, security and economic point of view – very negative trends.
One can continue with the claims and accusations between supporters and opponents, coalition members and opposition, religious and secular, conservatives and liberals, but in the end, in the light of this time and in a historical perspective, it cannot be ignored that in the end the sole responsibility for navigating the heavy ship lies with the Prime Minister. Currently, it seems that even the warning signs on the security issues do not lead to a real attempt to drop the anchor in calm waters and prevent the ship from sinking.