Was 10/7 Really a Surprise?
It seems clear to me that like 9/11 the 10/7 attacks were not a surprise. Like with air defense on 9/11 there was what appears to be a deliberate stand down by IDF and Unit 8200.
I will refrain from commentary, since this seems quite obvious, and so I will just provide a few excerpts and links from the NYT and Times of Israel
Israeli officials obtained Hamas’s battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews show. But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html
The brutal Hamas massacre on October 7 was preceded by months of warning signs noted by IDF surveillance soldiers and disregarded as unimportant by intelligence officials, according to eyewitness accounts given in recent days.
At least three months prior to the attack, surveillance soldiers serving on a base in Nahal Oz reported signs that something unusual was underway at the already-tumultuous Gaza border, situated a kilometer from them.
The activity reported by the soldiers included information on Hamas operatives conducting training sessions multiple times a day, digging holes and placing explosives along the border. According to the accounts of the soldiers, no action was taken by those who received the reports.
IDF surveillance soldiers, referred to in Hebrew as tatzpitaniyot, belong to the Combat Intelligence Corps and operate along the country’s borders, as well as throughout the West Bank.
According to the report, while Unit 8200 alone couldn’t have prevented the October 7 attack had it been operational during the early hours of the morning, its members would have been able to provide a clearer picture of what was unfolding during the first hours of the onslaught and could have potentially located Hamas’s elite Nukhba forces as they moved across southern Israel, under the cover of thousands of rockets, slaughtering people indiscriminately as they went.
In the weeks following October 7, several reports have attested that senior IDF officials, including those from 8200, ignored warnings from subordinates regarding suspicious activity along the Gaza border.
A report published by Channel 12 last Thursday alleged that soldiers in the unit warned that Hamas was preparing a highly organized and meticulously planned mass invasion of Israel. In response, the soldiers were told that their concerns were a “fantasy.”
So I will leave this with one more comment.
The 10/7 attack, and I don’t justify the taking or killing of Civilians by Hamas, was made worse by the Israeli’s belated response which appears to have applied the Hannibal Doctrine to Civilians and military alike, based on numerous reports at least some of those killed were killed by the IDF.
The more deaths the more support for subsequent actions, much like with COVID which was also made worse by a response that killed many more than should have occurred from the virus alone.
Hamas was the Virus and Israel responded in the same way as they did with COVID, with disastrous results for its population (in terms of death and economically)
We are now seeing the equivalent of a Vaccination Program to rid Gaza of Hamas, with what will likely yield similar results as the COVID vaccination program did, which is many more deaths than the virus (Hamas) could cause on its own , and more economic hardship for Israelis.