Why it matters:
The report highlights a "complete failure" of the Israel Occupation Forces (IOF) to protect Israeli settlers during the operation. The failure is attributed to multiple levels of operational shortcomings and missed opportunities, which led, in turn, to a lack of public trust in Israeli military and intelligence services.
Flashback:
Palestine's Resistance Movement Hamas launched the military Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023, in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long occupation of Palestine. The Palestinian resistance group took 250 Zionists captive. Yet, on October 27, 2023, the Israeli regime initiated a large-scale genocidal war on Gaza to destroy Hamas and overthrow its governance in Gaza while also seeking to retrieve the Israeli captives.
Zoom in:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office confirmed in a report that the premier’s intelligence officer received a memo from the IOF detailing suspicious Hamas activity three hours before the historic October operation. However, the relevant intelligence officer did not pass on the information. The prime minister’s office argued that this was justified because the memo was framed as non-urgent.
Key points:
- Israel describes the day of the operation as the deadliest for Zionists since the so-called Holocaust.
- Netanyahu’s office did not pass the information up the chain.
- The Israeli army did not investigate why the material was not received as it did not touch on the political echelon.
What we're hearing:
Chief of Israeli armed forces Herzi Halevi stated that the Israeli armed forces did not disclose that the prime minister’s office had been alerted to Hamas’s suspicious activity three hours before the operation, “even though this could have helped us in the face of the bad things that are being said about us."
Netanyahu's office issued a statement: “It is very unfortunate that the chief of staff chooses to publicly attack a moral and trustworthy officer in the IDF while attempting to shift the responsibility for the October 7 lapse onto his subordinates.”
Opposition leader Yair Lapid: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was briefed on the looming dangers to Israel ahead of Hamas’s October 7 attack, and was told by defense chiefs that national security was at risk, but willfully ignored all the red flags, all the warnings.
Context:
The internal conflict among the Israeli authorities comes as the regime has massacred nearly 50,000 Palestinians and gotten nearly 800 Israeli forces killed since October 7, 2023 to destroy Hamas and free the Zionist captives, but it failed. Israel was forced then to accept a ceasefire so that it could take back the captives in exchange with Palestinians it kept in detention for years.
By the numbers:
The Israeli Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) conducted a survey to examine trends in national resilience and public trust. The figures tell about the issue in January 2025.
Trust in IOF and Senior Command
Overall Trust:
- December: 74.5%
- January: 69%
- Decline: 5.5 percentage points
Trust Among Jewish Respondents:
- December: 85%
- January: 77%
- Decline: 8 percentage points
Trust Among Arab Respondents:
- December: 35%
- January: 35%
- Stable
Trust in the Chief of Staff
- November: 50%
- January: 42%
- Decline: 8 percentage points
Zoom out:
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei described the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood at its early stages as a fiasco for the Israeli regime: "The usurping Zionist regime has suffered an irreparable defeat, both in terms of military and intelligence."
The bottom line:
The intelligence and military failures during the October 7, 2023, mingled with Hamas's subsequent operations against the Israeli regime as it launched the war on Gaza, severely eroded public trust in the Israeli state and military. Widespread criticism of the Israeli army's unpreparedness led to intense scrutiny of Prime Minister Netanyahu's administration. The demand for accountability has put immense pressure on his cabinet, potentially leading to its collapse.
Mohammad Kazemi
seyed mohammad kazemi
