“That doesn’t mean that Hamas are not despicable psychopathic murderers.”
No. But it doesn’t mean that a big part of the Israeli “deep state”, or Netanyahu’s administration, aren’t clueless bureaucratic screwups.
There was most likely an intentional delay so that the “event” could be as bad as possible to outrage the Israeli public to the max so that it would support the total final solution, the annihilation of all the residents of Gaza turning it into a rubble. The reports also indicate that many of the horrific incidents did not happen as reported. To be sure, there was an attack and people were killed. But there are indications that the most gruesome reports were not backed up factually and may have also been part of the plan to gain maximum impact on public opinion. It occurred a long time ago and Netanyahu refused any effort to explain the lack of military response for as long as he could. There has been much speculation in Israel that the military response was not at all what the IDF is capable of doing. It can scramble helicopters and other aircraft to put down attackers in minutes if it so chooses.