Disdain, Denial, Neglect: The Deep Roots of Israel's Devastating Intelligence Failure on Hamas and October 7
After the 2021 Gaza war, Israeli military intelligence made a series of fateful decisions about what constituted the real threat from Hamas in Gaza. From the silencing of divergent opinions to the culling of units, this is how a 'chain of failures' happened
It was Friday, October 6, shortly after 11 P.M., an ordinary evening in the operations room of the Israel Defense Forces' Gaza Division, with the calm atmosphere of a holiday. Then came a shout: "Ali Al Qadhi is behaving suspiciously!" A soldier from Military Intelligence burst into the operations room, calling out a name familiar to everybody there – Qadhi, a Hamas operative from the Jabalya area, with a rank equivalent to that of company commander. The female spotters recognized him from a distance.