Israel’s military publishes first report on 7 October 2023 failures

The Israeli army published the first official account of the mistakes that led to its failures during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which led to the Gaza war.

The report concludes that the Israeli Defense Forces “failed in their mission to protect Israeli civilians.”

The 19 -page report contains a lot that is already known about what led to a catastrophic loss of about 1,200 lives when it broke into nearly 5,000 militants of Hamas and other Palestinian groups Israel, and they also took 251 hostages in this process.

There is no dramatic examination, but it is still sobering to see the army’s conclusions on how to misrepresent the intentions of Hamas and estimated the estimation of its black and white capabilities.

The report says that the army considers Gaza a secondary security threat, while giving priority to Iran and Hezbollah. He says that its policy towards Gaza was “contradictory: it was illegal enthusiasm, yet there was no effort to develop an alternative.”

The army chose the “conflict management” approach to dealing with Gaza. I assumed that Hamas was not interested [in] It does not prepare for a wide -ranging war.

Evidence from 2018 onwards, indicating that Hamas – which is prohibited by the terrorist Israel, was the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries – has already developed an ambitious plan that was interpreted as “unrealistic or not possible”, which reflects “Hamas’s long -term aspirations instead of an implemented threat.”

The report says that in the previous months, the Military Intelligence Directorate began developing a new evaluation, indicating that the Hamas plan was not just a vision but a “concrete framework for operational planning.”

However, this emerging evaluation did not draw the attention of senior military intelligence officials.

The report defines a wide range of self -consent within the army about the intentions of Hamas and how to deal with the threat it poses.

“There was no deep discussion of the question: What if we were wrong?” The report says.

Over time, a “large and continuous gap has evolved between Hamas and reality intelligence assessments.”

The report also sheds light on what he says was “a decrease in the deep familiarity of the enemy’s different view of the world, including its culture, its religion, language and history.”

It calls for the deep reform of the culture of the Intelligence Directorate, “promoting intellectual openness, doubt, listening, learning, discussion and constructive dispute.”

She says that the desire to protect high -value intelligence sources contributed to the army’s failure to raise the level of alert immediately before October 7.

She says that the Gaza section has been actually defeated for several hours “on October 7, which weakened its ability to understand what is going on and respond effectively.

She says that the Air Force quickly responded, but “there was a great difficulty in distinguishing between the Israeli Defense Forces, civilians and terrorists.”

The report also says that in some incidents, the wounded soldiers were evacuated in front of civilians.

After submitting the results to the leaders on Monday, the Israeli Defense Army Chief of Staff, LT Gen Herzi Halevi, said he was fully responsible for the failures.

“I embrace my responsibility. It is mine. I was the army commander on October 7 and I have my responsibility and I have all your responsibility,” he said in a video.

Last month, the general announced his resignation on failures and called for the investigation committee to conduct 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, said this investigation into the state must wait until the end of the war.

His critics accuse Mr. Netanyahu of being unwilling to admit any personal mistake.

Israel responded to the October 7 attack by launching an air and ground campaign in Gaza, during which at least 4,8365 people were killed, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health in the region.