‘Hamas was smarter than we were: we underestimated them’

In the face of such a demoralising attack, can this government think beyond displays of power to develop a long-term strategy, asks EETTA PRINCE-GIBSON

What just happened, Israelis have been asking each other desperately since Saturday morning? And even more desperately, we are asking, How did it happen? And what now?

The border between Israel and Gaza is one of the most heavily fortified in the Middle East, perhaps in the world. And yet, on Saturday morning, on the holiday of Simchat Torah, following massive rocket barrages into Israel's south and central regions, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Hamas fighters bulldozed across the high-tech, multi-billion-dollar security fence. 

In jeeps and pick-up trucks, with paragliders and drones, the Gazans breached the well-fortified “Maginot Line”, infiltrating, almost without opposition, some 25 kilometres into Israel, taking over at least 22 towns and villages. 

On TV and social media, Israelis further away watched as Hamas fighters rode through the streets, some on motorcycles they had grabbed, posing for selfies and wantonly and randomly killing anyone they encountered; bursting into apartments to kill their residents; attacking hundreds who had been partying at a nature-rave; and dragging hostages, dead and alive, into Gaza.

At the time of writing, some 32 hours after the fighting began, Hamas has murdered at least 700 Israelis and wounded more than 1800, many critically. The number of Israelis, dead or alive, taken into Gaza as hostages is unknown. Active fighting continues in at least three sites. 

But even as the media airs tearful, desperate pleas for family members to make contact - not knowing if they are dead, alive, wounded, taken hostage or out of mobile phone charge - it is important begin to ask the crucial questions.

Where was the army? The bulk of the army is in the West Bank. Not only has it been there for years, at the price of providing defence for other fronts, but recently, for example, the Gaza Division was transferred to policing activities in the West Bank. 

And while Hamas was attacking citizens along the Gaza Border, the Israeli army was providing security for messianic settlers who insisted on conducting prayers and Torah lessons in the middle of the West Bank town of Huwara, which has become a flashpoint since settlers rioted through the town some four months ago.

And where were Israel’s intelligence forces? Israel is known to have state-of-the-art electronic intelligence (ELINT), human intelligence (HUMINT), and signals intelligence (SIGINT). They are the backbone of our vaunted, high-tech "Start Up Nation". 

That question is harder to answer, and Israel will hopefully establish the necessary committee of inquiry later, after it's all over.  But a well-informed source in the intelligence community, who spoke on condition of anonymity, contends that, at least in part, the failure can be attributed to the Israeli security establishment's complacent and short-sighted assumption that Hamas was not interested in escalation, both because it fears Israel's devastating responses and because it was interested in establishing itself as the legitimate civilian governmental leadership in Gaza.

Indeed, only recently, security personnel were convinced that Hamas would not initiate fighting because it was interested in accruing economic benefits for residents of Gaza.  And only days before Hamas burst into Israel, Israeli officials were dawdling about how many Palestinian workers from Gaza should be admitted into Israel.

"To put it bluntly," says the intelligence source, "Hamas was smarter than we were. We underestimated them, politically and operationally. An operation like this requires tremendous planning and ability, and we just didn't realise they had them. We were too busy thinking about other things and convincing ourselves that we could 'handle' them."

In fact, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policy towards the Palestinians has long been that Israel could allow Hamas to entrench in Gaza while he concentrated on decimating the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, where he and his coalition partners want to continue settlement expansion and annex to Israel proper.

Furthermore, Netanyahu has long boasted that he could circumvent the Palestinian elephant-in-the-room completely, by concentrating on the geopolitical, regional alliances, such as the Abraham Accords and the upcoming deal with Saudi Arabia. Yet one could certainly argue that this policy actually put pressure on Hamas and Iran to ensure that they are not forgotten in the Arab and Muslim world.

For Israelis, the comparisons to the disaster of the Yom Kippur War are inescapable. Operation Iron Swords began, suddenly, 50 years and one day after the sudden outbreak of the Yom Kippur War. On a holiday, on the Sabbath, at a quiet time. Both seem to be the result of an ill-advised contzeptzia, the Hebrew term, following the Six-Day War, for the Israeli military and political establishments' misguided belief that Israel was infallible, leaving it vulnerable to the coordinated attacks by Syria and Egypt.

What now? Hamas TV is urging Israeli Arab citizens and residents of the West Bank and East Jerusalem to join the attack. So far, they haven't.

Will the conflict spread through the region? It's already seems to be percolating in the north, where, in Lebanon, Hezbollah has more than 75,000 long-range, precision missiles. Will this now be an all-out war? Some Israel civilians, even in central Israel, are beginning to stock up on groceries, nappies and other necessities.

I don't know if Hamas has won Operation Iron Swords. It certainly has won an optic and psychological victory, although, after the expected Israeli response destroys Gaza physically and economically, leaving countless dead, the people in Gaza won't have won anything.

But I do know that, at least on some levels, Israel has already lost. Many of us feel the same sense of desperation and almost paralysing fear that we felt in 1973. The scenes of the gleeful sadism of Hamas as they stripped the bodies of young women and paraded their abused bodies through the streets of Gaza, the image of the elderly man forced to walk barefoot across the border, the malicious shooting, the evil joy – they are indelibly imprinted on us, and we are bereft.

And frightened. If the IDF and the intelligence establishment could fail so miserably in Gaza, it's impossible not to ask: what else are they missing? What else are we vulnerable to? What more will happen?

The extremists in the government and the Knesset are already using apocalyptic terms for what Israel should do to Gaza. Viewing the sadistic bloodshed, I deeply understand the call for revenge. And Hamas is an evil enemy. No matter what one thinks of Israel's policies in Gaza, to deny that is to validate their murderous spree.

But where would that get us? And what about the hostages? Can this government think beyond short-term wins and displays of power to develop a long-term strategy? Netanyahu has tried to avoid any long-term resolution of the Palestinian conflict since he came to power.  Why would he change now?

Domestically, there is talk of an emergency unity government. But opposition leader Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) has made it clear that he will join only if Netanyahu kicks out Internal Defence Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (who also holds part of a security portfolio), whose extreme, messianic-nationalism has been responsible for much of the domestic unrest.

But Netanyahu needs Ben-Gvir and Smotrich to keep his government's majority afloat – and to ensure that he stays out of jail. It is unlikely that he will dismiss anyone. This would leave us with a government, led by messianics, extremists, nationalists, and religious fundamentalists, that is neither deft nor wise, and does not have the support of a majority of the public – not even of those who voted for it in November 2022. 

Sure, Israelis of all stripes will rally around the flag for a while, seeking mutual support and cohesion. It's almost an instinct, a reflex, in times of danger and uncertainty. But the unrest and divisions that have convulsed Israel since this government began its judicial overhaul in January 2022, won't go away.  They may be pushed aside for a while, but the deep distrust and societal rifts will endure.

Photo: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and IDF Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi in the IDF Headquarters in Tel Aviv on Sunday (Amos Ben Gershom / GPO)