War has been a perpetual concern in Israel, but it has been decades since Israelis have had to wonder whether this would be the day that their borders would be overrun and they would be subjected to acts of barbarism revealing humanity at its worst. Though the fog of war is thick, it is already clear that Hamas’ attack came as a shocking surprise. From a military point of view, it is inexcusable.
On October 12, while meeting the visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “Just as ISIS was crushed, so too will Hamas be crushed. And Hamas should be treated exactly the way ISIS was treated.”
One of the hard lessons of October 7 was that the vernier of stability in the Middle East had been removed, the failure of imagination — one of the lessons of 9/11 — was next. The lack of a solution to the Palestinian cause has now brought the region to the brink of an abyss.
A Monumental Intelligence Failure
Intelligence failure on the part of the Israeli state-vaunted intelligence agencies; Shin Bet, the legendary Mossad and the military intelligence is being attributed as one of the main reasons for Hamas to have been able to unleash themselves, fifty years after Israel was caught by surprise during the Yom Kippur War on October 6, 1973. How were the Hamas able to get the weapons, train, prepare and organise themselves and moreover carry out this attack, the terror spectacle of which was played out in real-time?
Capability, the ability to use that and the will and resolve to execute this attack would not have been developed overnight and being able to discern the intent is what intelligence is all about, eliminating the threat from the base from where it originates comes next. The Gaza border reportedly has sensors, cameras and thermal imaging to detect movement and is patrolled regularly and this is backed by quick reaction teams who can then arrive at the point within minutes. Was there some sort of cyber-attack that preceded the attack resulting in immobilising these assets and rendering the surveillance grid virtually ineffective? What about space-based surveillance systems? There is always redundancy built in as far as these networked systems and other monitoring mechanisms are concerned.
Hamas fighters used unsophisticated weapons to overrun border security with drones, bulldozers, and bombs, and they travelled to inflict violence and take hostages on paragliders, motorcycles, and golf carts. Though images may suggest a spontaneous action on the part of Hamas, it was without doubt a pre-planned, well-coordinated and executed operation.
The Israelis were confident, they knew exactly what the Palestinians were doing by their sophisticated means of spying. They built a wall costing over a billion dollars. They felt that Hamas wouldn’t dare launch an attack because they would get crushed and that the Palestinians would turn against Hamas for causing another war. They believed that Hamas was focused on a long-term ceasefire.
Their attention was focused on the North where Hezbollah had accumulated thousands of rockets and on the West Bank where violence was increasing to a point where analysts were talking of a third Intifada, the Palestinian Jihad seemed to be a greater threat and there was tension in the area surrounding Al Asqa Mosque.
Israel’s far-right had been pushing to undo the long-standing agreement that banned non-Muslim prayer at the compound. After Israeli forces stormed the mosque in April, arresting and beating Palestinian men, Hamas quickly took advantage of the situation and called for Palestinians “to take action to defend Al Aqsa Mosque.” But it turns out this may have been part of a deception. Operation Al Aqsa Flood was large-scale, sophisticated and well-coordinated. It was not possible without detailed operational planning. Israel’s leadership missed it.
Internal Bickerings to the Fore
The reasons that have led to this counter-terrorism failure are essential. Internal bitterness, political instability and acrimony within Israel. Were the extreme right-wing credentials of the present Israeli government responsible for driving a wedge in society?
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed overhaul of Israel’s judiciary had divisive effects on Israeli society, leading to massive public protests. Hundreds of essential military reservists pledged to refuse to show up for duty if the overhaul passed. Did this domestic turmoil weaken Israeli deterrence not only by influencing enemy perceptions but also by eroding Israel’s actual intelligence capabilities and military readiness?
Yuval Harari has said, “The real explanation for Israel’s dysfunction is populism rather than any alleged immorality” and went on to state that Netanyahu “has built his career on dividing the nation against itself”.
There is no doubt that the current political gridlock has resulted in damaging Israel’s security. It has to introspect and place national security above its internal political bickering.
Failure To Act
The fundamental question facing Israel is whether this intelligence disaster was primarily a failure to warn or a failure to act. Intelligence is a cycle, from collection and collation to analysis and dissemination. While preventing strategic surprises is paramount. However, it is not enough for intelligence collectors and analysts to sound the alarm. Policymakers also have to take action.
Apart from Hamas, Israeli intelligence officials could have also misjudged Israel itself. Intelligence agencies, no doubt, focus their collection and analysis on understanding foreign adversaries. But domestic politics and problems can embolden enemies and alter their assessments of actions and reactions, changing their perceptions and behaviour. It is not enough for intelligence officials to understand “them.” Intelligence must also understand “us,” and how their country’s domestic divisions are perceived by its enemies. Did Hamas feel that they could take advantage of the prevailing discontent?
Hamas’ ability to plan an attack involving thousands of fighters suggests that it was able to identify and implement countermeasures to Israel’s uncrewed aerial systems, human informants, and electronic surveillance. However, a recent statement by an anonymous Egyptian intelligence official suggests that Egyptian intelligence had detected and communicated to Israel that something big was coming.
Once the attack unfolded, there was a failure to react. To quote Brig Gen Dan Goldfus, “There was nobody really understanding the full picture”. The speed, precision and scale of Hamas’ attack had thrown the Israeli military into disarray. Some attribute it to the rebalancing of Israeli Forces to the North and West Bank.
Over-Reliance on Technology
Emerging technologies are transforming the world, as well as the ability of intelligence agencies. In this technological era, with greater speed and data, while intelligence agencies must understand and embrace new technologies faster and better to generate insight, the new tools carry risks as well as benefits. Chief among the risks is that intelligence agencies may end up placing greater weight on intelligence that is easier to obtain, measure, and analyse by technical means and not enough weight on intelligence that is more difficult to collect and impossible to quantify by human means.
In the months before the attack, Hamas had in fact warned that a conflict could be coming. In late August, Saleh al-Arouri, the group’s number-two leader, based in Beirut, told a Lebanese news channel that the Israeli government’s policies, its land grabs in the West Bank and its desire to control the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem could spark a war. “We are preparing for an all-out war,” he said, “and we are closely discussing the prospects of this war with all relevant parties.” In April, a delegation from Hamas met in Beirut with Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, to discuss cooperation between the two organisations as an “axis of resistance” against Israel. The meeting was not the first. Officials from Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran’s Quds Force have been meeting regularly in Iran and Lebanon for years. Intensions were there.
Important Security Takeaways for India
The question that Israel needs to answer and which applies to all security forces across the globe is whether it was a failure of intelligence, a failure to act based on actionable information, or was it complacency and overconfidence that had led to this monumental and systematic failure? Or was there a lack of internal coordination between the IDF and intelligence agencies?
We too have multiple agencies looking after our security, each reporting to its own chain of command, a case in point being border security under both Armed Forces and CAPFs including BSF and ITBP operating under the MoD and MHA. Is there not a case in point to get this under one unified command authority?
Prolonged deployments and not maintaining the desired degree of operational readiness led to delayed reactions and troops deployed in the vicinity of the border of the Gaza Strip being overrun and some even taken hostage. There were images of tanks but their muzzle covers were on indicating that they were not prepared for firing.
The Israelis had got used to frequent rocket attacks and individuals carrying out shootings but they failed to gauge the ‘sentiments’ of the people to carry out an attack on this scale. The Services are taught to ‘think out of the box’ but the potency of the Hamas attack was ‘unimaginable’. The highest levels of military readiness need to be maintained at all times.
The other issue is the ability of the security agencies and forces to focus on the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the nation and not get sucked into the vortex of internal all-consuming internal issues.
The last point which is applicable is the two extremes of warfare; technology and humans. Are there weaknesses in high technology; chinks that become visible when confronted with combat? Surveillance systems and protection systems such as the Iron Dome have had failings. Both humans and technology need to complement each other but over-reliance on technology has its limitations.
We cannot wish away the fact that a multitude of people can cross a border hell-bent on tearing the fabric of a nation. India witnessed this in October 1947 in Kashmir when the Lashkars crossed over in large numbers and would have reached Srinagar but they got distracted by plunder in Baramulla and by then, the Indian Army had been flown in. Pakistan had also infiltrated a large number of troops dressed as locals into J&K in August 1965 as part of Operation Gibraltar. Once again, it was the Indian Armed Forces that were instrumental in defeating these designs.
Conclusion
Failures are evident but the deeper question is why they happened. Militaries around the globe will be applying their minds to this aspect and though most of the answers will remain classified, there is no doubt that serious thinking needs to be done to draw out relevant lessons.
Most countries in the West are surrounded by friends and this has led them to reduce their security structures after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet Union as treat perceptions were re-evaluated. A degree of comfort and reluctance to use force had set in. The Ukraine War shifted the paradigm getting ‘security and deterrence’ back in focus. But what also needs to be figured out is the manner in which Hamas got things right.
How did Hamas manage to keep such a large-scale, complex operation a secret? Israel is in a state of shock. The aura of invincibility has been shattered. Being a hard power, it will strike back with vengeance ensuring that its response will act as a sufficient deterrent against other terrorists wishing to widen the scope of engagement.
India, like Israel, faces challenges from its neighbours. Our borders with both China and Pakistan are unresolved, terrorism has been and is a constant threat. It is therefore imperative that we draw out the relevant lessons thoughtfully and systematically and carry out corrective measures to ensure we are not blindsided and cannot afford a refusal to reform.
The author is an Army veteran. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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