Israeli leaders are under fire for the unprecedented strikes carried out by the Hamas terror group over the weekend, as concerns are raised over the potential failure of the country’s legendary Mossad intelligence agency.
On Saturday morning (October 7), Hamas launched an air, land, and sea assault on 22 targets outside the Gaza Strip, including towns and other populations as far as 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the border.
The strike caught Israel’s security system off guard, which had previously been mainly effective in dampening any shadow war against the Jewish state.
The apparent lapse was highlighted when the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that neither the Israeli Defense Force nor the Israel Security Agency — commonly known as the Shin Bet — issued any warnings that the terrorist organization, which operates out of Gaza, was about to launch the attack.
This intelligence failure is even more surprising because senior IDF and defense ministry officials stated last week that Hamas was not interested in open conflict, according to the publication.
Israelis were caught off guard
They even went so far as to say that the militant group had no intention of starting the war. According to US sources, if the Israelis were aware of an impending strike, they did not inform Washington. “We were not tracking this,” a senior US military official said, according to NBC.
According to the BBC, Israel boasts the Middle East’s most extensive and well-funded intelligence network. Their spy network consists of spies and agents who have infiltrated Palestinian terrorist groups and comparable organizations in Lebanon and Syria.
However, this was insufficient
“The entire system failed. It’s not just one component,” Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF international spokesman, told CNN.
“It’s the entire defense architecture that evidently failed to provide the necessary defense for Israeli civilians. This is a Pearl Harbor-type of moment for Israel, where there was reality up until today, and then there will be reality after today,” he added.
So far, at least 700 Israelis have been killed, while more than 400 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began retaliating.
The Yom Kippur War’s Remains
The strike on Saturday brought up bitter memories of the October 1973 war, which occurred precisely 50 years ago on the same date, when Israel’s enemies launched a surprise attack on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism.
“It cannot be understated or put in less severe terms: The IDF, the strongest military in the Middle East and one of the most respected worldwide was caught completely by surprise in the Hamas attack on Israel on Saturday,” YNetNews, a leading portal, asserted.
