The IDF reportedly did not have an organized response plan for an invasion scenario by Hamas, according to an investigation conducted by the New York Times, citing past and present soldiers and officers quoted in the American newspaper.
If there was indeed such a plan, no one practiced it or followed it, and the Times investigation concluded that “the soldiers that day made it up as they went along.”
Their report, only days after publishing a separate investigation on Hamas’s sexual violence on the October 7 attack, stated that IDF believed, in the worst-case scenario, that the terrorist organization would only be able to break through the Israel-Gaza border fence in a few places but that they thought in theory that Hamas “was neither interested in nor capable of launching a massive invasion.” The NYT based their report on internal Israeli government documents they obtained.
Israeli officials even reduced eavesdropping on Hamas radio traffic because they thought it was a waste of time, as they thought that such an attack was extremely unlikely.
The picture of the situation became clear in the weeks after October 7 which showed that Hamas breached the fence in 30 different points and moved quickly towards the communities bordering Gaza.
New details indicate in the NYT investigation that it took hours for the IDF and Israeli security forces to grasp the magnitude of the incident. Furthermore, the IDF units that formed the first line of defense in the settlements surrounding Gaza were not trained for the scenario either.
Israeli forces disorganized, relied on impromptu WhatsApp groups and Telegram channels
The report stated that Israeli forces were disorganized, to the extent that soldiers communicated in impromptu WhatsApp groups and relied on social media posts to obtain information. Helicopter pilots were told to rely on media reports and Telegram channels to target the terrorists responsible.
They also stated that beneath the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv in the Kirya, Israeli commanders were “trying to make sense of reports of Hamas rocket fire in southern Israel,” whilst operating from a bunker known as The Pit.
Dozens of officers, soldiers, and eyewitnesses were interviewed in the Times investigation and many spoke on condition of anonymity.
The first units that were deployed were also relatively small, which the NYT implied that even after the invasion there was still no understanding of the size of the attack. It wasn’t until 7:43 a.m. that the first order came out to all emergency forces and all available units to head to Israel’s south. This was following a message that came from one of the bases along the border of the Strip regarding a terror attack on the base. The commander who warned of the attack did not realize the extreme extent of the attack.
However, by then, “the nation’s military leaders did not yet recognize that an invasion of Israel was already well underway,” the Times said.
One of the first IDF units that arrived at the scenes of the attack was the Maglan Unit, which was about half an hour’s drive away from the Gaza envelope that day. According to the investigation, the unit’s main training is to fight in enemy territory, but not to deal with an invasion. According to an officer in the unit who spoke to the Times, “There was no concrete mission that day, soldiers were instructed to take weapons and go out to save people.”
The NYT report also claimed that some of the IDF units bordering Gaza were poorly trained and that military reservists were not prepared to quickly mobilize and deploy.
Additionally, when attacks began, soldiers in the area were “fighting for their lives instead of protecting residents nearby or coordinating a response to the invasion,” the report said. Soldiers had to abandon a base in Nahal Oz and leave behind the corpses of their fellow soldiers. In Kibbutz Re’im, which is home to the Gaza Division base, was understaffed because of Simchat Torah. One soldier there told the NYT that some soldiers didn’t know they were under attack until Hamas was in their sleeping quarters.
After losing contact with a base that was under attack, the Maglan Unit turned to Rafael Hayun, a civilian who was engaged in private intelligence gathering. Refael, a man in his 40s who lives in Netivot, received many WhatsApp messages that Saturday from civilians who were under fire and forwarded them to the Maglan forces. According to the investigation, even hours into the fighting, the unit had no idea that Kibbutz Kfar Aza was under attack, and the information about the invasion reached the unit’s personnel only around 11 a.m. A senior officer who fought that day said “There were many heroes that day, but the army only needs heroes when things go horribly wrong.”
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