Posted on 06/17/2024 3:56:56 PM PDT by Uncle Miltie
A document put together within the IDF’s Gaza Division less than three weeks before October 7 warned that Hamas was training for a large-scale invasion of Israel during which hostages would be taken en masse, according to an Israeli television report Monday.
The document by Military Intelligence’s Unit 8200 was circulated on September 19 and was reportedly brought to the attention of at least some senior intelligence officials, but ignored.
It estimated the target number of hostages at 200-250, according to the Kan public broadcaster, citing unnamed security sources. During the actual October 7 massacre, 251 hostages were taken and 1,200 others were killed, mostly civilians.
Similar reports were subsequently published by other Hebrew media outlets.
The detailed document described a series of exercises by the Palestinian terror group’s elite forces who drilled raids on Israeli towns and military posts, on how to hold soldiers and civilians hostage when back inside Gaza, and in what conditions they can be killed.
Commandos in Hamas’s elite Nukhba force were instructed not to leave documents behind after they raided bases, according to the memo. Terrorists were told to ensure hostages did not have telephones on them, were forbidden from informing hostages’ families of their condition, and to move them if it became apparent that Israel determined their location.
Terrorists were also required to threaten to kill hostages to deter others from escaping.
The document was brought to the attention of senior intelligence officials, at least within the Gaza Division, unnamed security officials told Kan. The government and top military leaders have contended they were not warned about an imminent planned invasion at the time.
The report added that the most extreme scenario the Gaza Division had prepared for before October 7 was dozens of terrorists breaching the border in three spots — far less than the estimated 3,000 who ended up entering Israel during the onslaught.
One of the soldiers involved in the report wrote after October 7, “I feel like crying, yelling and swearing,” according to Kan.
In its response to the report, the military did not acknowledge the document, but said it was investigating the failures that led to the massacre and would present them, “transparently to the public.”
The report follows several others in which the military was said to have received some prior warning of the massacre. Israel had multiple sources of information on Hamas’s drills and other preparations for an assault in the weeks and even hours ahead of October 7, reportedly including a 2022 attack plan from the terror group.
A military assessment in 2022 determined it was too soon to say the plan had been approved by Hamas, and when an analyst with the country’s signals intelligence unit noted the organization had carried out a training exercise in line with the plan, her warnings were dismissed.
Palestinian rioters during clashes with Israeli security forces along the frontier with Israel, east of Gaza City, September 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)
Following the October 7 onslaught, surveillance soldiers who served along the border with Gaza said they had raised concerns before that day about suspicious activity but were ignored.
The IDF had long touted its security fence, with cameras, watchtowers and high-tech sensors, as providing security to residents of Gaza border towns. But on October 7, Hamas terrorists knocked chunks of it aside with explosives and bulldozers at multiple locations, then drove right through the gaping holes in jeeps and on motorcycles, while others sailed over in hang gliders, as drones dropped explosives on observation towers and took out cameras.
Amid a simultaneous rocket barrage across southern and central Israel, an estimated 3,000 terrorists stormed into southern Israel and slaughtered soldiers and civilians alike, with some local resistance but the military establishment slow to react.
The Israeli military announced earlier this month that it would begin to present its investigations into its failures in the lead-up to the Hamas terror group’s October 7 attacks in July.
It’s disconcerting to contemplate that there is an Israeli version of Jimmy Carter. And further that any such creature should have been reeducated by the events of October 7th.
LOL! Israel today.
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The people of Israel do not really like Bibi. But at this moment, they do not trust anyone else to wage the war against Hamas.
I agree with your conclusions. I have friends in Israel who in the past have detested Bibi. I haven't asked lately what they think of him now. They are suffering rocket attacks daily.
The problem with Israel’s defense and intelligence establishments is (IMHO, as someone who has observed Israel with great fondness for the last 50 or so years and, in particular, these aspects of their society) that most of the time those in charge are infected by an insufferable amount of arrogance. You don’t get to be in charge by being a dope (and many who are very intelligent are arrogant to begin with); further, when dealing with opponents whose population has an average IQ of 85, you tend to be successful quite often - and that breeds yet more arrogance AND complacency.
We suffered from the same problems before Pearl Harbor - the “lowly” Japanese could never produce sophisticated enough technology, nor come up with the planning, necessary to pull off something like a raid on Pearl - so it was dismissed, even when elements of the military and our intelligence services KNEW what was happening - Hell, we saw their f’ing planes on radar and simply dismissed them.
The only way to fix this problem is to ALWAYS have a Team B, complosed of retired military and intell officials who are known to be stubborn and who operated against the conventional wisdom when they were active. If they despise those in charge of the military and intell agencies today, so much the better - and then those in charge had BETTER listen seriously to Team B’s recommendations, because if they don’t, then there’s no point. Reagan had a Team B to deal with the Soviet threat, and their recommendations were adopted in many cases, and to our great advantage to the conventional wisdom, CYA types that tend to inhabit the bureaucracies of ALL nations.
Why do you doubt it?
I’m a Christian. I don’t give people the benefit of the doubt. I judge them based in their fruits
They knew in advance and did nothing.
https://youtu.be/2PeYDphtHYo?si=Wd3B5SYiPNREsu3p
Here is an interesting take for you
You are unable to prove the mossad knew and did nothing. You made it up.
Good thing for them that they are not in Russia. Defenstrations of Pskov are a misery.
But it is very strange that the Israeli authorities did not react to the initial breach of the border barrier in Gaza. It was not just a single fence - they had seized land for a quarter of the kilometre, a buffer zone within Gaza, and it was closely covered with surveillance towers. Nothing moved, in the zone, without being seen in Tel Aviv. Well - not until Oct 7. And then the Hamas operatives began blowing up the surveillance towers, which should have triggered every sort of alarm, but did not. Meanwhile they are rushing over the fence, and hopping over on little kites, etc.
The IDF was not summoned until people in Israel started calling for help. This is extraordinary, and an explanation is needed. I suppose there will be an enquiry, after the war.
People with a predisposition on how the world works get into positions where they are expected to react to reality instead of some internal view of how things MUST be. I’ve seen this in corporations where, when things turn south and actions need to be taken, they are not. That’s because the things happening contradict and invalidate the preexisting view of how things MUST be. This is one thing that frightens me about putting, say, trans people into positions of power and authority. You already know that those people can create and live inside of their own special reality. What does that mean when they are expected to respond to changing conditions and those changes threaten their preestablished view of how things MUST be?
One of the most dangerous things you find in any organization is holding people to goals and objectives. The goal, in this case, is to minimize the number of cross border incidents, then the obvious way of meeting that is to simply not report or respond to such incidents. I don’t know what happened here, but it’s quite obvious the failure is on the interpretation side of the equation. All the evidence was there and obvious. It had doubtless been reported up the chain. But somewhere along that chain somebody said, “No, that can’t be. The people reporting are overreacting.” And, likely, the information stopped right there. That is a danger of hierarchical systems. Hierarchy is great for organizing things but can block feedback to the top.
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