Financial Times: Israeli intelligence dismisses broad warning of Hamas attack as policy

British newspaper Financial Times revealed in a report that a senior intelligence officer of the Israeli forces rejected the contents of a detailed warning in anticipation of an attack by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) last October.

The report – authored by Mehul Srivastava – described the content of the senior official warning as a “fanciful scenario”.

Srivastava explained that guards on Israel’s border with Gaza – many of whom have been watching and analyzing a series of videos and other data about the area near the electronic fence around the Strip – submitted a detailed report to the Southern Command’s top intelligence officer weeks ago. attack

It has been warned that Hamas is training to blow up border points in many places to enter Israeli territory and seize kibbutzim.

Biggest intelligence failure since 1973

Israel’s failure to prevent the attack, known in Israel as Yom Kippur, is now seen as the biggest intelligence failure since Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack in 1973 (the October War, or the tenth of the Ramadan War), the newspaper said. War.

The report indicated that Hamas was conducting hostage-taking exercises and that they believed an attack was imminent, and through analysis of several video clips, lower-level soldiers had warned.

The warning was sent after Israeli soldiers spotted a high-ranking Hamas military commander overseeing the exercise.

The newspaper said the leader was identified using a database of faces and identities maintained by Unit 8200, part of the Israeli intelligence service.

The Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (KAN) released details of a similar warning sent to high-ranking soldiers late Thursday over Israeli territory, the newspaper reported.

Debates within Intelligence

The Financial Times said the failure to take the warnings seriously has become a topic of debate within the intelligence community, tantamount to disciplinary action, and is reminiscent of the debates that followed intelligence failures before the 1973 war.

These warnings were ignored not only because they came from low-ranking soldiers, but because they conflicted with the Israeli government’s belief that it had controlled Hamas through a punitive siege, bombing its military capabilities, and using aid and money. As a means to calm it down.

Another reason to ignore it

The Financial Times explained that this type of attack by Hamas would immediately lead to war with Israel, which the Israeli intelligence community believes the movement is trying to avoid.

The newspaper concluded its report that Hamas followed the pattern predicted in the attack memo, including hitting specific kibbutzim and using rockets to distract Israeli forces from continuing the incursion.