Entire manual for Hamas invasion obtained by Israeli intelligence officer BEFORE invasion; ignored by her superiors
An intelligence leak this week resulted in Israeli leaders admitting that they learned of dozens, maybe hundreds, of Hamas terrorists activating SIM cards for use in Israel six hours before their October 7th invasion, but neglected to deploy additional troops along the Gaza border.
This was far from the only warning Israeli leaders received and ignored before the invasion.
Invasion manual obtained prior to invasion
Investigative reporter Caroline Glick learned that an Israeli intelligence officer provided her superiors with the actual training manual for the invasion, months before it occurred:
[A] tactical intelligence NCO [non-commissioned officer] and Hamas expert in Unit 8200 with 20 years of experience began providing detailed reports on Hamas’s preparations for the invasion in May 2022.
In a series of three, increasingly detailed and urgent reports over succeeding months, the NCO set out in granular detail how Hamas was preparing a broad invasion of Israel that included the invasion of IDF bases, border towns and kibbutzim. Her reports included all aspects of the invasion that took place on Oct. 7, including Hamas’s use of paragliders, pick-up trucks and motorcycles. She detailed Hamas’s plans to massacre and kidnap civilians and soldiers. She warned that their intention was to use provocations along the security fence in the weeks leading up to the operation to get the IDF used to breaches and so lull its commanders into complacency. She even secured Hamas’s own training manual for the operation. She was able to get the information in front of Unit 8200’s commander and a top officer in the Southern Command. They apparently did nothing. [Emphases added.]
Although the NCO stressed that Hamas planned to bluff an invasion more and more frequently until Israel stopped reacting to the provocations, Israeli leaders still fell for the bluff when Hamas terrorists approached the border fence and activated Israeli SIM cards (which would only be needed if they planned to enter Israel).
Observation unit told to stop reporting suspicious activity near border fence
Glick also reported severe intelligence failures prior to the invasion:
[T]two [surviving] women [from an IDF observation unit along the Gaza border] related that in the months before the invasion, they were warning it was in the works. The women saw Hamas terrorists training to take over kibbutzim and IDF bases. They watched terrorists practicing taking hostages and blowing up tanks. They saw terror commanders watching the drills. They saw spies probing the fence for weaknesses. They saw it all and reported it all.
Rather than giving them medals, unnamed top-level officers in the intelligence corps ordered them to stop. When they continued reporting, the observers were warned that they would be disciplined and removed from the unit if they kept raising their concerns. [Emphases added.]
Successfully hacked Hamas — and fired
Glick also documented the case of a hacker who succeeded in penetrating Hamas communications. In consequence, he had his equipment seized under orders from “senior leadership” after years of providing evidence “in real time” of the increasing intensity of the terrorists' training for an invasion:
The observers weren’t the only ones silenced. Rafael Hayun, a civilian hacker who monitors open intelligence networks, worked for the IDF for years. The IDF provided Hayun with equipment to monitor Hamas’s internal communications. In late 2019, Hayun began reporting on Hamas training exercises involving invading Israel, penetrating the security fence at multiple points, taking over communities, committing mass murder and kidnapping. Over time, the training became more intense and detailed. Hayun alerted the units he was working with about Hamas’s activities in real time.
Five months before the assault, his colleagues in the IDF were ordered to seize all of his equipment and stop working with him. Around the same time, the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate Unit 8200 signals intelligence unit also stopped monitoring Hamas’s communications.
Hayun said that his military colleagues told him the order to cut him off came from “senior leadership,” and they had no explanation for the decision. Hayun told reporters he is convinced that if he had been listening in the weeks before Oct. 7, the invasion would have been prevented. [Emphases added.]
Email from base: "Attack imminent"
The night before the invasion, both the IDF and the Shin Bet (Israeli's General Security Service) reported signs that Hamas planned to breach the border, with an IDF officer even sending an email to his superiors warning of “certain signs coming from Gaza” indicating an imminent attack.
On the night between October 6 and 7, hours before the early morning assault, an email was sent from an IDF base on the Gaza border describing “certain signs coming from Gaza” about an imminent attack. At the same time, the Shin Bet security agency also saw signs that something was up.
At around 1:30 a.m. on October 7, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi’s office manager was updated about this by the Shin Bet, and then by the IDF general in charge of the Southern Command. At around 3:30 a.m., Halevi was awakened. He asked to arrange a telephone consultation in order to make a situational assessment. That session took place some 90 minutes later . . .
[Aharon] Haliva, the head of the Intelligence Directorate, was not involved in these October 6-7 consultations. He was on vacation in Eilat. He was updated around 3 a.m. about the worrying signs from Gaza, but took no part in the consultations and wasn’t available by phone for them. [Emphases added.]
Wait to investigate?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed back against demands for early elections and an immediate probe into the failure of Israeli leaders to heed warnings from “multiple sources of information on Hamas’s drills and other preparations for an assault in the weeks ahead of October 7, reportedly including a 2022 Hamas attack plan.”
Even those who threatened to discipline officials who continued to warn of an invasion remain in their positions, as does Intelligence Chief Haliva, who dismissed the reports as Hamas “pretending,” as Glick notes:
[A]n NCO with 30 years’ experience, canceled a family vacation because he heard Haliva would be visiting their base. He waylaid Haliva, and he and his subordinate presented [his colleague's] report. Haliva dismissed their warnings and detailed information as hot air. Hamas, he insisted, was just pretending, to make an impression on its followers. He did not communicate her report to either the head of Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) or the IDF Chief of General Staff. [Emphases added.]
An upcoming internal IDF investigation is limited to exploring possible operational changes and will not seek to identify leaders who put Israelis at risk:
The probes . . . are aimed at drawing operational conclusions for the military, and will not look into the policies of the political leadership, avoiding a fight with government
Trust them?
Netanyahu has not only refused to move up new elections for political leaders following the Hamas invasion, but he has also left all his generals and intelligence officials in place, despite their documented failures. Even Intelligence Chief Haliva, who dismissed all the warnings and the invasion manual as hot air, and whose underlings threatened court action against observation troops who continued to issue alerts, remains in his position.
Former Knesset member Moshe Feiglin, on the other hand, warned as early as October 23, 2023, that the people who failed to act on the warnings and who empowered Hamas in the first place cannot be trusted to lead the war to destroy Hamas:
Whoever brought the disaster upon us, cannot manage dealing with it.
Check back for our continuing coverage of Hamas and Israel as we look at the Israeli officials behind the numerous intelligence failures and their role in bringing Hamas to power.
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