Before Hamas’s spectacular attack, there were numerous failures, a former Israeli army lieutenant colonel told Euronews.
Hamas chose the ‘perfect storm’ of days to launch its massive attack on Israel early on Saturday morning.
Many folks were already on vacation or had gone home to spend Shabbat with their family because it was the Sukot festival weekend.
The lauded Israeli Defense Forces were at “minimum operational capability” with the fewest number of personnel patrolling checkpoints and military installations.
Additionally, the anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, in which Israeli forces were ambushed by Egyptian and Syrian-led forces in 1973 due to a lack of intelligence, was a psychologically crucial time to unleash yet another significant volley in this decades-long battle.
According to Peter Lerner, a former IDF spokesperson and retired lieutenant colonel in the Israeli Defense Forces, “I would say there are probably three failures we can identify at this stage.”
He criticizes a “overconfidence” in the military’s defense systems, such as the wall around Gaza and the Iron Dome missile defense system, which was overrun by a large number of Hamas rockets and eventually proven ineffective.
The brief, brutal Yom Kippur is used as a lesson in the IDF’s officer training program to emphasize the need of taking warnings seriously and how intelligence is expected to affect operations on the ground.
According to Lerner, the operational strategy for Hamas clearly identified the holiday, the weekend, and the presence of few forces and exploited them, which is why what occurred on Yom Kippur is similar.
Attack impact was increased by intelligence shortcomings.
Israel didn’t anticipate this, despite having possibly the most advanced human intelligence and electronic intelligence gathering networks in the region.
Israel was completely taken by surprise, even with the intelligence disparity. Senior intelligence officers were stating just a few weeks ago that Hamas was not interested in a protracted war, according to retired Lt. Col. Lerner.
He continues, “This is definitely a serious error on the side of the intelligence community.
What will probably need to happen next is a ground invasion into Gaza, perhaps’softened up’ first by airstrikes.
Although the presence of Israeli hostages in Gaza’s overcrowded shantytowns is probably going to prevent widespread military action.
“Recent battles caused by terrorism have resulted in a small number of fatalities, a handful of fatalities. In this attack, which was unprecedented in Israel’s history, at least 700 people died, according to Lerner.
He claims that Israel’s military is assembling around the Gaza Strip in preparation for the upcoming events.
