Israel 'at war' as Hamas militants launch surprise attack – video It is true that Hamas, while always determined and capable of long-term planning, has become much more skilful at adapting to the military challenges it faces, often expending large amounts of effort in its planning and in its identification of Israeli vulnerabilities, a fact very well-known to Israel’s defence forces. Despite all of this, Hamas’s preparations were missed. Israel’s surveillance technology industry, as evidenced by the Pegasus spyware scandal, is among the most advanced in the world. Members of militant groups inside Israeli prisons have also historically been targeted for intelligence efforts, all of which makes Israel’s being unsighted on the planned Hamas attack all the more surprising. They were told to seek individuals with financial and health problems, those vulnerable because of sexual impropriety, efforts duplicated in entry and exit interviews for those Palestinians allowed to leave the coastal strip. If it is surprising it is because Israel’s surveillance of Palestinian society is both highly sophisticated and highly invasive, with monitoring of Hamas’s activity in particular one of the most important tasks for the security establishment.Īs whistleblowers from the Israeli defence forces cyberwarfare 8200 Unit revealed to the Guardian and other media in 2014, the net for developing sources is almost all-encompassing in their task to identify potential informers in the occupied Palestinian territories. While the images of several thousand rockets sectoring the sky has become familiar over the years during the periodic upticks in fighting around Gaza, the footage of Hamas assault teams moving through the streets in communities such as Sderot, blowing the gates off a kibbutz and firing on passing cars and pedestrians, showed scenes not witnessed by most Israelis, for whom short-lived attacks in cities have become a fact of life. In one instance, a Gaza television journalist delivered a standup report about one attack from inside Israel, an almost unthinkable moment. He is Marc Polymeropoulos, not Polymeropoulous.Gunmen kidnapped and murdered Israelis in the southern border communities, filming their assault as they advanced in numerous locations. ET): A previous version of this article misspelled the last name of a former CIA analyst. are preoccupied with the immediate crisis, but in time there will inevitably be demands for an inquiry into how Israel could have been caught off guard by such a large-scale and sophisticated attack, experts said.ĬORRECTION (Oct. “They have had sources inside these Palestinian groups for years.”ĬIA Director William Burns was due to give a keynote speech Saturday at a national security conference in Georgia organized by the Cipher Brief media outlet, but he canceled because of the crisis in Israel, said his spokesperson, Tammy Thorp.įor the moment, Israel and the U.S. I’m just speechless,” said Clarke of the Soufan Center. “I’m truly astonished for something of this magnitude to go down and for the Israelis to have no clue that this is about to happen. NBC News could not immediately verify the report. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that senior Israeli military officers and officials had assessed, as recently as last week, that Hamas wanted to avoid a full-blown conflict with Israel. He urged them to absolve themselves of this “great shame.” Hamas spokesman Ibrahim Hamad said on Al Jazeera television that the attack is “absolutely a message” to Muslim countries seeking normalization with Israel. In the wake of the attack, Hamas and Hezbollah said the attack represented a warning to any Muslim country seeking to strike peace with Israel. They also said the 50-year anniversary of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war also may have been a factor. officials said early assessments are that the timing of the Hamas attack was related to signs that a deal normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel was close to being clinched. It’s of course a large intelligence failure.” This is just something I’ve never seen before. Usually, even one person from Gaza gets close to the border, they’re intercepted and neutralized long before they can do anything. I’ve never seen the border breached in this manner. ambassador to Israel in the Trump administration, said: “In the 40 or more years that I’ve been following Israel one way or another, I’ve never seen this happen. Clarke said it was an open question whether recent domestic political turmoil in Israel had played a role in the apparent intelligence failure.ĭavid Friedman, who was U.S.
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