There are at least three major strategic and tactical failures which led to a mix of Hamas successfully invading southern Israel at over 60 locations and in 22 villages on October 7, with Be’eri being one of the worst results and slaughters.
And it is important to enumerate all of these failures to not lose sight of the big picture amid the volumes of facts and timeframes which the IDF shared on Thursday.
But it is also important to state what did not come out on Thursday: the bulk majority of the IDF’s remaining probes which will be publicized on a rolling basis over the next seven weeks, and just as crucially, the results of a state inquiry into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his government, and former governments who had a hand in the October 7 failed “Conceptzia”/conceptual security framework.
The key takeaways from the first probe
However, first back to what we did learn today.
1) The IDF’s first report on October 7/Be’eri confirms that the military’s border defense was vastly undermanned, betting too much on technology and sensors to provide advanced warnings. When Hamas used retro tactics to destroy these sensors and to invade, the IDF had no answer. This was about the hubris of the IDF, the Shin Bet, and the government toward Hamas. They both wrongly believed that Hamas was deterred and that it was too incompetent to present an invasion threat.
2) The report confirms the broader failure of not having a serious second line of defense. No matter how many troops and sensors one puts on a broader, and skilled and patient enemy can always find at least one weak link to break through. It is based on this fear that the IDF has worked for around a decade on handling a successful Hezbollah invasion of a few northern border villages (a few, not 22 as Hamas did.) It is exactly because no border is impenetrable, that a serious second line of defense is needed to be ready at all times to prevent successful invaders from getting much past the border. With no real second line, one Hamas broke through the border, some of its fighters got dozens of kilometers out to Ofakim and others could have potentially made it to larger cities like Ashkelon. According to the Be’eri report, the IDF did not gain a numerical advantage over Hamas until 2:30 p.m. on October 7, nearly 7.5 hours after the invasion had started. This stunning failure exponentially compounded the earlier one.
3) Intelligence and operations warnings failures – IDF intelligence officer “V” warned her supervisor Lt. Col. “A” of Hamas’s invasion plans, but was ignored as entertaining a “fantasy” and wasting everyone’s time. Other senior IDF operations officers ignored warnings from junior female lookouts. IDF intelligence even ignored hundreds of IDF SIM cards lighting up in Gaza on the eve of the invasion, dismissing it as a drill. Finally, IDF intelligence and operations were so distracted by Hamas’s 3,000 rockets in four hours, that they did not devote enough attention to Hamas’s simultaneous ground invasion. According to the Be’eri report, no senior brigadier general division level commander was put in charge of the Be’eri area until 1:00 p.m. It is no wonder that few reinforcements were arriving if there was no one to run the show, and that it took so long to decide that because IDF intelligence and the high command were totally blindsided and then in a state of shock.
The next probes will reveal further details of what went wrong
We will need to wait for the full details about some of the above issues, such as exactly what went on behind the scenes within IDF intelligence, operations, and the high command, leading up to the war and on October 7, in the following probes which are due out over the next seven weeks.
And all of this is happening far too late.
The most intense parts of the Gaza war were over by early January.
While there was heavy fighting in Khan Yunis briefly in early February and in Rafah briefly in early May, most of the time since early January, the fighting has been low key.
These probes could have been publicized in March-April if they had been started in January.
Yet, at least the public will get a full accounting on all of these issues.
In contrast, Netanyahu has pulled out all of the stops to block even any discussions of a state inquiry looking into his decisions and the decisions of prior governments which led to October 7.
On that topic, there is little debate that Netanyahu is one of a group of authors of the security concept that Hamas could be deterred and contained in Gaza, and that it was acceptable to leave them in power.
Along those lines, Netanyahu was one of the key people who devised the plan of having Qatar pay Hamas salaries to avoid wars.
Further, while there are different views on who is at fault for the negative impact of the 2023 judicial overhaul debate on the IDF, at least one of the views is that Netanyahu is to blame for pushing forward the overhaul with such speed and tenacity that his own Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who supports judicial reform in general, warned him that he could destroy IDF operational readiness.
There is no question that Netanyahu is not alone on these issues. His main opponent today, Benny Gantz was IDF chief 2011-2015 and was part of deterring and containing Hamas.
Former prime ministers Nafatali Bennett and Yair Lapid (mid 2021-end of 2022) also both accepted this security framework.
Some have said that almost the entire current political establishment should be replaced with new blood, from Right to Left.
One specific potential criticism of Netanyahu is also that he did not try much to play out diplomatic options with Fatah in the West Bank to try to isolate Hamas, and instead often tried to weaken Fatah.
Bennett likely would have supported this policy, but Gantz and Lapid certainly did not.
The missing puzzle pieces
Did this make Hamas stronger and more of a threat or would such initiatives have gone nowhere? A nonpolitical state inquiry could give an opinion on that and then eventually the voters could render their verdict on the issue.
A state inquiry will also be able to independently judge the IDF and Shin Bet chiefs, who currently have no one above them to second guess their decisions.
In any event, while the IDF probes are a significant start in helping the nation move beyond October 7, until there is a state inquiry, it is unlikely that the nation will be able to fully turn the page.
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