The Israel Army publishes the first report on October 7, 2023 failures

The Army of Israel has published its first official story of the errors that led to their failures during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which triggered Gaza’s War.

The report concludes that the Israel Defense Forces (FDI) “failed in their mission of protecting Israeli civilians.”

The 19 -page report contains a lot that is already known about what led to a catastrophic loss of approximately 1,200 lives when approximately 5,000 men armed with Hamas and other Palestinian groups broke into Israel, and also brought 251 hostages in the process.

There are no dramatic revelations, but it does describe how the military judged the intentions of the Palestinian armed group and underestimated their abilities.

The report says that the army considered Gaza as a threat of secondary security, with priority given to Iran and Hezbollah. His policy towards Gaza, he says, was “paradoxical: Hamas was illegitimate, but there was no effort to develop an alternative.”

The army had chosen a “conflict management” approach to deal with Gaza, he says. And he had assumed that Hamas was not “interested (in) or preparing for a large -scale war”, a perception reinforced by Hamas’ own deception tactics.

The evidence of 2018 onwards suggested that Hamas, which is banned as a terrorist group for Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries, was developing an ambitious plan was interpreted as “unrealistic or involuntary”, which reflects “Hamas long -term aspirations instead of an actionable threat.”

The report says that in the months prior to the war, the Military Intelligence Directorate began to develop a new evaluation, which suggests that the Hamas Plan was not simply a vision but “a specific framework for operational planning.”

However, this emerging evaluation was not called the attention of senior officials in military intelligence.

The report identifies a wide complacency streak within the military on the intentions of Hamas and how to deal with the threat he raised.

“There was no deep discussion of the question: what happens if we are wrong?” The report says.

Over time, “a significant and continuous gap between Hamas intelligence evaluations and reality had been developed.”

The report also highlights what it says was “a decrease in the deep familiarity with the different worldview of the enemy, including its culture, religion, language and history.”

Ask for a deep reform of the culture of the Intelligence Directorate, “to promote intellectual opening, skepticism, listening, learning, debate and constructive disagreement.”

He says that the desire to protect highly valuable intelligence sources contributed to the failure of the military to raise the alert level immediately before October 7.

Gaza’s division says, “was effectively defeated for several hours” on October 7, which significantly affected its ability to understand what was happening and responding effectively.

He says that the Air Force responded rapidly, but that “there were significant difficulties to distinguish between the troops of the FDI, civilians and terrorists.”

The report also says that in some incidents, wounded soldiers were evacuated before civilians.

After presenting the findings to the commanders on Monday, the head of the outgoing cabinet of the IDF, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, said he assumed all the responsibility for the failures.

“I hug my responsibility. It’s mine. I was the army commander on October 7 and I have my responsibility and I have all your responsibility. I see that as mine too. And I see that in all the command of mine that went wrong, there is also a part of me,” he said in a video.

Last month, the general announced his resignation about the failures and requested an investigation commission to carry out a broader investigation that would help prevent another attack.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has not recognized any responsibility for what happened on October 7, has said that such state investigation should wait until the end of the war.

His critics accuse Mr. Netanyahu of not being willing to admit any personal fault.

Israel responded to the October 7 attack by launching an air and land campaign in Gaza, during which at least 48,365 people have been killed, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health of the territory.