The hours leading up to the October 7 infiltration from Gaza and subsequent attacks provide insight to military failures led to a slow response that day.
The evening of October 6:
9:00 p.m. — The Gaza Division intelligence officer and IDF Southern Command Chief Yaron Finkleman receive notice of the Shin Bet’s seeing Hamas activating Israeli SIM cell phone cards in Gaza. This was the first wave of SIM cards; more were activated on a rolling basis of waves later that night.
9:00 p.m. – 11:30pm — Extensive communications between the Gaza Division, Southern Command and the Shin Bet about the SIM card issue, including explanations being provided by intelligence officials to reassure commanders that this has happened many times before.
12:00 a.m. — Finkleman and IDF Southern Command Intelligence Chief Col. “A” start a detailed dialogue about three possible scenarios for explaining the SIM card activity: 1) Some kind of undefined, but not terribly serious attack move b) a military drill c) a localized attempt to penetrate Israel in a small number of spots involving at most dozens of Hamas fighters. They schedule a wider and deeper situation assessment for 10:00 a.m. the next morning.
Morning of October 7:
12:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m. — Various IDF southern command officials are regularly dialoguing with their counterparts in the Shin Bet about the potential crisis.
2:30 a.m. — He moves up the situational assessment from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. and orders some additional intelligence collection.
2:00 a.m. – 3:00 a.m. — IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi’s bureau chief wakes him up and starts updating him on the situation. Halevi orders additional air force drones into the sky and additional intelligence collection, and to update the air force, but there is no urgency in the orders, and only the rotation air force manager is updated, not Air Force Chief Tomer Bar.
3:00 a.m. – 4:00 a.m. — IDF Operation Command Chief Oded Basiuk and his top deputy Shlomi Binder dialogue with the Shin Bet, ordering some additional air force drones into the sky. However, this should be limited so as not to “burn sources” – the IDF is afraid that if it sends too many drones or aircraft into the sky suddenly, that Hamas will discover its spying-intelligence collection sources and methods.
3:10-3:30 a.m. — IDF intelligence analysis chief Amit Saar and IDF Unit 8200 chief Yossi Sariel are updated for the first time about the situation. IDF intelligence chief, Aharon Haliva, on vacation, gets an update from his top aide and tells the aide to update him if anything more serious occurs.
Halevi orders that he receive an update from Finkleman, but Finkleman is in the middle of his own update with several intelligence and Shin Bet officials, so the update for Halevi is delayed until 4:00 a.m., reinforcing the feeling that nothing is imminent.
Halevi’s bureau chief updates Basiuk that Halevi and Finkleman will be speaking at 4:00 a.m., and Basiuk decides on his own to join the call. Halevi’s top aide, Col. Hayim Ben Mouyal, is not brought into the picture.
3:15 -3:50 a.m. — Finkleman holds a call with southern command intelligence and two high-level Shin Bet officials. No one thinks there is any immediate threat. Finkleman orders some similar moves with the air force not knowing that Biasuk already issued the same orders.
3:30 a.m. – The Shin Bet issues a warning that Hamas might be seeking to do a localized small penetration, but that at that moment, Hamas forces still appear to be in peacetime positions.
4:00 a.m. — Halevi held a virtual meeting with Finkleman, Basiuk, and some other IDF officials, including from IDF intelligence.
Crucially, Halevi did not demand that Haliva be woken up from his vacation, nor did Haliva’s aides, who knew about the SIM cards, deem it necessary to wake him.
Also, Halevi did not demand that IDF Air Force Chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar participated in the meeting.
Further, Halevi did not see fit to wake up then-defense minister Yoav Gallant or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Both Gallant and Netanyahu have said that had they been woken up, they might have advised some additional defensive measures.
Halevi was also focused on not taking too many visible physical actions so as not to tip off Hamas regarding the IDF’s penetration of their SIM cards.
He did order additional drone intelligence collections of any suspicious movements in the Gaza area, an order which was not unexplainably not executed. Also, he ordered an aircraft to be moved from Ramat David base in the North to Ramon base, closer to Gaza. The middle management in the air force and operations command decided to do this around 8:00 a.m. (which turned out to be 90 minutes after the invasion started), not viewing it as an urgent order.
4:00 – 5:00 a.m. — Ongoing dialogue between IDF southern command, operations command, and air force officials, but not between the top commanders.
At some point, the Shin Bet sends its around one dozen member Taquilla team to the border. Since the Shin Bet has not sent its probe, the IDF does not have a set time for when this occurred, but many of the Taquilla team were killed by Hamas invaders in one of the heaviest Shin Bet battle losses in its history.
4:15 a.m. – 5:40 a.m. — Finkleman calls back his brigade commanders, at colonel rank, but based on a recommendation from Gaza Division Chief Brig. Gen. Avi Rosenfeld does not call back battalion commanders at the lieutenant colonel level. Battalion commanders are the classic field commanders of a few hundred soldiers on the battlefield.
5:30 a.m. — Air Force Chief Bar is given a wider update.
6:29 a.m. — Hamas fires a massive number of rockets and invades.
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