Leaks continue to stream out about the various IDF probes into the failure to block Hamas’s invasion on October 7, with the latest revelation Tuesday night being that one primary reason for the failure was the substantial success the military had in blocking Hamas’s attempted smaller scale invasion in May 2021.
The Jerusalem Post has been told this in prior off-record discussions with top defense officials. Still, Channel 12 became the first outlet on Tuesday night to confirm that this issue is highlighted in the draft report, which still has yet to come out but is expected in late August or early Fall.
In May 2021, Hamas made a number of smaller-scale attempts to invade southern Israel, but the mix of forces and advanced sensors on the border helped easily thwart them. This inflated the IDF’s confidence that Hamas had no chance at pulling off even a small-scale invasion, the IDF report will say.
The specific report in question will deal with the government and defense establishment’s national security defense framework for Hamas and Gaza.
Although initially, the report was slated to come out as one of the later reports in late August, after a number of more minor reports came out about individual October 7 battles, the impression is that the IDF has reshuffled the order of publicizing the reports.
Earlier IDF probe
On July 11, the IDF published its first report, a probe of the battle of Beeri.
Part of the report specifically criticized Lt. Co..”A” of the Shaldag for retreating from fighting Hamas at a point when his small force of around 13 was vastly outnumbered and had already taken losses when trying to assist the Beeri residents.
Other parts of the report criticized the border police, the Sayeret Matkal, and other units, while only giving brief mention to the fact that all of these units were put in a horrible and highly disadvantaged position because the senior government and IDF levels security concept and intelligence had utterly failed.
After receiving harsh criticism for seeming to hang out lower-level field commanders to dry before identifying higher commander’s broader errors in misjudging the threat which Hamas presented and failing to place enough forces on the border, the IDF appears to have decided to hold back the Kfar Aza and Nir Oz reports, in order to first, or simultaneously present, the reports on the broader strategic errors of the government and the IDF’s high echelons.
Additional, more well-known reasons for the failure, which Channel 12 also reported would be included in the Gaza Division’s failed defense concept report, include the volume of troops allocated for defense, with Gaza being considered a secondary issue compared to Lebanon for many years, and even secondary to the West Bank since the March 2022 waves of terror; the government’s consistent desire to avoid escalation with Hamas whenever tensions increased; the billion-dollar state-of-the-art border obstacle system of sensors and underground walls being falsely perceived as impregnable; and top officials’ strong commitment to the idea that Hamas was deterred from invading, leading them to systematically discount significant counter-indications gathered by intelligence and lookout units.
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