Peter Myers Digest: Oct 7 was Inside Job
(0) (video) Broufus (ex-IDF soldier, worked on Gaza border): Oct 7 was inside job
(1) (Video) Oct 7 was Inside Job – Netanyahu & IDF knew Oct 7 breakout was coming
(2) (Video) Netanyahu on TalkTV admits We couldn’t get consensus to destroy Gaza before Oct 7, but Oct 7 provided that consensus
(3) “We couldn’t get the domestic consensus” to destroy Gaza – Netanyahu on TalkTV
(4) Netanyahu interview with Douglas Murray on TalkTV – Times of Israel
(5) IDF intel on Oct. 7 plans; it held consultations hours before Hamas attack
(0) (video) Broufus (ex-IDF soldier, worked on Gaza border): Oct 7 was inside job
(5 minute video)
https://x.com/Broufus/status/1725056993935913217
(1) (Video) Oct 7 was Inside Job – Netanyahu & IDF knew Oct 7 breakout was coming
https://truthinmedia.com/episode/how-did-october-7th-happen/
{watch the video at the above link}
READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Ben Swann
{a courageous journalist whose life may now be on the line – Peter M.}
The gruesome bombardment of the Gaza Strip is continuing into its seventh month and there’s no signs that the carnage is stopping anytime soon.
https://truthinmedia.com/episode/how-did-october-7th-happen/
READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Ben Swann
The gruesome bombardment of the Gaza Strip is continuing into its seventh month and there’s no signs that the carnage is stopping anytime soon.
Just last week, Israel<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-05-04/ty-article/.premium/report-hamas-accepts-gaza-cease-fire-deal-israeli-officials-deny-prospect-of-war-ending/0000018f-42eb-d414-a5bf-f3fff18a0000> rejected a ceasefire and intensified its bombing attacks on Rafah — conducting almost hourly aerial strikes.
Back on October 7th, armed with<https://abcnews.go.com/International/detailed-hamas-secretly-crossed-israel/story?id=103917182> AK-47s and motorcycles, Hamas managed to breach the Gaza fence slaughtering and capturing hundreds of Israeli soldiers and civilians in southern Israel — they called it Operation Al Aqsa Flood.
So what did the Israeli government know and when… its a question almost no one in media is asking.. but we are… I’m investigative Journalist Ben Swann and this is Reckoning… Israel and Gaza.
7 months ago on October 7th, Hamas was able to carry out its shocking terror attack against Israel, despite Israel’s intelligence, military and security apparatus commonly considered the best in the world.
Bearing in mind Israel’s incredibly sophisticated and capable defenses and brigades of trained IDF soldiers stationed near the Gaza border, the scale and operational success of the Al Aqsa Flood attack surprised even Hamas.
Hamas representative Ali Barakeh explained to the<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/16/hamas-attack-israel/> Washington Post the ease with which Israel’s entire security apparatus disintegrated: “We were expecting to get a smaller number of hostages and return [to Gaza], but the [Israeli] army collapsed in front of us, what were we to do?”
In response to the Al Aqsa Flood attack, the Israeli military’s retaliatory efforts, code named Operation Swords of Iron, has resulted in the deaths of <https://cpj.org/2024/05/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/#:~:text=As%20of%20May%2020,%202024,and%201,200%20deaths%20in%20Israel.> over 100 journalists,<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/05/13/un-worker-killed-rafah-israel-gaza/> 190 United Nations staff,<https://time.com/6979208/israel-gaza-death-toll/> thirty four thousand Palestinians, including 13,000 children, displaced nearly the entire Gaza population of 2 million people and cost the United States almost $50 billion.
So how did October 7th happen? Well the entire mainstream media was quick to call it an “intelligence failure”.
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/07/hamas-stealth-attack-will-be-remembered-as-israeli-intelligence-failure-for-the-ages>The Guardian told its readers on the afternoon of October 7th that “Hamas’s murderous attack will be remembered as Israeli intelligence failure for the ages.”
While the attack was still technically ongoing, on October 7th,<https://archive.ph/Rm69R> Politico quoted Israel’s former deputy National Security Adviser David Frielich as saying, “It’s a failure in terms of intelligence, operationally. It’s clear we were caught totally unprepared by this.”
And on October 8th, Jonathan Panikoff, former deputy national intelligence officer on the Middle East, who’s now at the Atlantic Council think tank”<https://archive.ph/bBls8> firmly educated the public: “This was an intelligence failure; it could not be otherwise.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself<https://archive.ph/ax3Tg> tweeted and quickly deleted a statement denying any foreknowledge of the October 7th attack.
“Under no circumstances and at no stage was Prime Minister Netanyahu warned of war intentions on the part of Hamas…” the tweet said, before it was promptly deleted.
Why did Netanyahu’s team delete that tweet? Did he in fact have intelligence that there would be an attack by Hamas? Well, the evidence seems to point to… yes.
Foreign security services, Israeli security services and the Israeli public all knew that Hamas was planning a violent, cross-border incursion where they would attempt to over-run and attack the kibbutz communities in southern Israel and take prisoners back to Gaza. And they also knew when. But it happened anyway.
Ten days before the attack, and then again<https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67082047> three days before the attack,<https://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-intelligence-official-says-israel-ignored-repeated-warnings-of-something-big/> Egypt intelligence officials passed “repeated warnings” to the highest levels of Israel’s government.
In one of these warnings, Egypts premiere intelligence minister General Abbas Kamel personally called Netanyahu and warned that Hamas was about to do “something unusual, a terrible operation..”
Unnamed Egyptian<https://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-intelligence-official-says-israel-ignored-repeated-warnings-of-something-big/> officials told YNET News that they were shocked by Netanyahu’s “indifference to the news.”
But Israel didn’t have to trust or believe Egypt, because actually, most of the warnings of the October 7th attack came from Israeli civilians and the Israeli military itself.
The civilians and soldiers who brought these emergency warnings to the military were ignored and in some cases, strangely enough, threatened with legal action.
Let’s start in 2022 and work our way up to the days before October 7th.
In 2022, the IDF, through confidential sources, or spies, in Gaza,<https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html> actually obtained the detailed Hamas Al Aqsa Flood attack plans.
Codenamed “Jericho Wall” by Israel, the excursion plan called for a barrage of rockets to begin the attack and for gunmen to pour into Israel en masse via paragliders, on motorcycles and on foot and take hostages back into Gaza — all of which happened on October 7th.
Hamas followed the blueprint that Israel already had — with shocking precision.
So Israel had the attack blueprints, but were they taken seriously by the IDF? Yes.
The plans were diligently studied. A presentation on the planned attack was given to senior officers in the IDF’S Gaza division.
The<https://archive.ph/qxnH4> presentation concluded with this sentence:
“This invasion constitutes the gravest threat that IDF forces are facing in the defense [of Israel]”
So in response to this, did Israel’s security establishment beef up and enhance their surveillance of Hamas militants on the other side of the border? No, stunningly, they actually did the exact opposite.
They decided to entirely<https://archive.ph/DEY3c> stop monitoring Hamas’s handheld radio traffic. Because they saw it “as a waste of effort” — even though during that same time in 2022, Israelis living in the kibbutz communities near the Gaza border, most of whom have some type of military training due to Israel’s mandatory IDF service laws, were, according to Israeli media, picking up<https://archive.ph/EC0TO> clear evidence that Hamas was “practicing the breaching of the fence and conquering kibbutzim and seizing hostages and destroying everything in their path.”
Then, In April 2023, 6 months before the attack, again according to Israeli media, the IDF “<https://archive.ph/EC0TO>restricted the ability” of Israelis living near the border “to monitor Hamas’ wireless traffic.”
In September 2023, less than a month<https://archive.ph/dt3oU> before the attack, the head of the IDF’s “Devil’s Advocate” intelligence unit, which challenges prevailing narratives within Israel’s military, twice alerted senior decision-makers in both the army and political spheres about Hamas’ plans for a large-scale cross-border military operation.
He reiterated these warnings in person at Intelligence Branch strategic assessment sessions on September 26th and 27th. Just days before the attack.
During this period, just days before Al-Aqsa-Flood, Israeli civilians residing in the kibbutzim near the Gaza border were witnessing with their own eyes and ears constant and enormous Hamas training exercises. The army reportedly turned a blind eye.
One of these Israelis,<https://archive.is/wZ2Lh> Ben Shoshan, worked as a tour guide in the south eastern Israeli region surrounding Gaza.
In a radio interview just days before October 7th, she remarked, “[Hamas has] been training for weeks right up against the border, sometimes in massive numbers. I tried to warn the officers, but they told me I didn’t know anything and that I was safe.”
On October 3rd, a journalist for Israeli Public Radio<https://x.com/pozailov1/status/1709097381529022687> tweeted and made it crystal clear that the bizarre and violent Hamas drills on the Gaza side of the border were evident to all Israelis who live there, let alone the military.
“The Islamic Jihad organization started noisy exercises very close to the border [with] missile launches, [simulating] breaking into Israel and kidnapping soldiers…Dedi Fuld, a resident of Netiv HaTara [said] `It was significantly closer than previous times. The children wake up and ask what’s going on, there are explosions, booms. It is not similar to previous exercises.”
So it was clear to everyone that Hamas wasn’t only planning to do something horrible, but it was also clear *what* that “horrible and evil” thing was.
<https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12767619/amp/Israeli-troops-warned-Hamas-attacks-Female-soldiers-reported-suspicious-activity-border-Gaza-weeks-leading-October-7-attack-threatened-court-martial.html>According to a female IDF soldier who spoke to Israel’s channel 12 news program, she was constantly trying to warn her superiors about the gravity of Hamas training exercises. She was threatened with legal action.
“We were told that if we continue to harass on this issue, you will stand trial.”
So, Egypt knew, the Israeli military knew, and the Israeli civilians knew.
Yet, two days before October 7th, the Israeli military took<https://web.archive.org/web/20240122092404/https://www.timesofisrael.com/2-commando-companies-said-diverted-from-gaza-border-to-west-bank-days-before-oct-7/> two entire commando brigades, or around 100 soldiers, away from the the soon-to-be breached locations of the Gaza border and sent them to the other side of the country, to the West Bank village of Huwara despite no Hamas presence being in Huwara and despite there being giant Israeli dance parties taking place right along the same border fence where violent, escalating and obvious Hamas drills of breaching and kidnapping were taking place.
Does that make any sense?
Have you heard about these dance parties? It turns out there’s bizarre and inexplicable narratives surrounding the planning of these now infamous dance parties in Israel along the Gaza border.
What has not been widely reported is the fact that there were<https://archive.ph/9msVK#selection-1184.0-1184.1> actually two, back to back dance parties at Kibbutz Re’Im, which is also the location of the IDF’s Gaza division and only 3 miles from the Gaza border.
The first party, planned months in advance, was a party called the “Unity Festival” which took place on October 5th and 6th.
The Nova Festival, the October 7th party, was actually added last minute,<https://archive.ph/9msVK#selection-1184.0-1184.1> only a few days in advance of the event.
For obvious reasons, any significantly large gatherings near the Gaza border require Israeli military approval.
Again, this is a part of the story that virtually no American media network will talk about. According to Israeli media reports, Lt. Col. Sahar Fogel, an operations officer at the IDF’s Gaza Division,<https://archive.ph/9msVK> opposed the approval of the Nova Party based on the last minute nature of its event application and the intensifying Hamas drills at the border and because if something were to happen, more soldiers were on holiday. It was the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
The Lt. Col. explained his opposition to the party’s approval to his superiors. He was instructed to allow the event.
Israeli Newspaper <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-25/ty-article/.premium/idf-allowed-rave-later-attacked-by-hamas-despite-key-officers-concern/0000018c-9d78-ddc3-a1bf-bf7edca30000>Haaretz reported that other Gaza division officers privately “told of irregular conduct and pressure surrounding the approval of the party.”
In February 2024, Elkana Federman, the head of security for the Nova festival<https://archive.ph/q4n3Q> gave an interview to Israel’s Channel 14 where he made a statement that hasn’t been reported on by any American media.
“I had a guard at the festival who had served in the Re’im Division [near Gaza border], and a week before the festival he sent me a voice message … basically warning me, saying, ‘Elkana, something is going to happen over Sukkot. I just wanted to let you know, there are a lot of warnings..I passed the voice message on [to local IDF officials], and they told me everything was all right.”
After the attack, Federman called his friend in the IDF to ask him exactly what he knew.
“You were speaking in code. Tell me exactly what they showed you. He told me ‘Elkana, they told me there was going to be an invasion, and that they were planning to take over settlements. I just wasn’t allowed to tell you that.’ And that’s what happened. If he knew what he knew, a driver on the Gaza border…what did those above him know? Because he’s a small screw in the system.”
The Hamas attacks were violent and brutal. They have been likened to tragic events such as September 11th and the Holocaust, so it comes as a surprise that Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his Likud party have at times described the attacks as somewhat of a political gift.
Nissim Vaturi, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party in the Knesset,<https://archive.ph/1ytuu> referred to the attack as sort of gift from God because they are being used to justify the current ongoing war, stating:
“We were meant to fight this war against Hamas, as is happening now, and luckily for us it came from the heavens.”
Back in January, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu <https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=VpsqUTZmD6W-lMCW&t=1592&v=F57xdV_mIsA&feature=youtu.be> explained that Israel didn’t have domestic or international support to invade or destroy Gaza. He said the October 7th Hamas attack solved both of those problems for him. Listen to this.
(2) (Video) Netanyahu on TalkTV admits We couldn’t get consensus to destroy Gaza before Oct 7, but Oct 7 provided that consensus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F57xdV_mIsA&t=1592s
‘Worst Savagery Against Jews Since Holocaust’ | Benjamin Netanyahu v Dou…
Ben Swann
12.30
(Jan. 2024) Netanyahu:
“We couldn’t get the domestic consensus to make…a definitive solution to the problem of Hamas. That is, no one would agree across the Israeli public to go in and basically destroy Hamas—go throughout Gaza and destroy Hamas. We didn’t have the international consensus either; nobody would understand why we are doing it. Both conditions were created because of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th.”
All of this information, which has been reported in isolation and without context, until now, in no way excuses the brutal and sadistic October 7th Hamas attack that took the lives of so many innocent people but It does raise an important question, a question that brave people have to consider.
Did the Israeli military, the Israeli intelligence community, and the political leadership of Israel allow this ghastly attack to happen to justify wiping out the population of Gaza? And it raises big questions for us. What type of war is the Biden Administration and U.S. taxpayer supporting? A war of self defense? Or is it genocide justified by an attack that Israel likely could have stopped had they wanted to.
These are heavy questions. But rather than simply dismissing what we are saying, prove us wrong.
If you haven’t already, you can follow us on X @truth_inmedia or you can follow this series by signing up to see each episode as it comes out at truthinmedia.com. At TruthinMedia you will find the transcript of this story along with the source articles.
Check them ouT for yourself and stay tuned as we continue to unveil the truth around Israel’s war on Gaza.
(3) “We couldn’t get the domestic consensus” to destroy Gaza – Netanyahu on TalkTV
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sjg6o4lca
Netanyahu said he never believed in the ‘conception’ that led to the massacre
In an interview the prime minister claimed he was opposed internally when he wanted to uproot Hamas, also claimed he opposed the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza despite having voted in favor at the tim
Ynet|01.30.24 | 19:04
In an interview on British Talk TV, Netanyahu said he was not a believer in the conception that Hamas was interested in war with Israel.
“I believed that we can’t cut deals with Hamas,” Netanyahu told journalist Douglas Murray in an interview broadcast on Sunday. “The question was what do you do about it and my conclusion was that we have to continuously cut these wild weeds.” He then explained the estimated cost to life on both sides, of such action.
“We couldn’t get the domestic consensus to make such a definitive solution,” he said adding that there was also no likely international support for such a move.
He also repeated claims that he opposed the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza claiming he had warned that Hamas would take over and Israel would come under attack and also claiming he left the government over that issue, neglecting to mention that he in fact had repeatedly voted in favor of the pullback.
(4) Netanyahu interview with Douglas Murray on TalkTV – Times of Israel
Netanyahu claims he never bought into ‘conception’ Hamas didn’t want to attack Israel
After years of placating terror group with Qatari money, work permits and lackluster responses to their attacks, PM insists he always knew the only solution was to destroy it
By SHIRA SILKOFF30 January 2024, 9:55 pm
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed on Monday that he never believed Hamas was more interested in growing rich while ruling Gaza than it was in attacking Israel, despite having made statements to the contrary in the past.
During a 30-minute interview with British author Douglas Murray, Netanyahu was asked about the “conception” — as many have termed officials’ deeply mistaken paradigm in the years leading up to the October 7 assault — that Hamas “wanted to be corrupt and get rich” more than it wanted to carry out a massive assault on Israel.
Responding to Murray’s question, Netanyahu said, “It may be true of some people” that they believed that Hamas had given up on trying to launch a full-scale war against Israel in favor of growing comfortable in Gaza, but that he personally had never fallen for the idea.
“I believe that we can’t cut deals with Hamas,” Netanyahu — who oversaw the 2011 deal that saw Hamas release Gilad Shalit from captivity in exchange for more than 1,000 terrorists — told Murray. “I called them ISIS, many years ago. When they took over I said, This is ‘Hamastan,’ [that] these people will work to attack us.”
“This was dismissed at the time that we left Gaza,” Netanyahu added, referring to Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, when the military and 21 Jewish settlements evacuated the coastal enclave under the leadership of then-prime minister Ariel Sharon.
“I resigned from the government before that happened. I said this is what will happen: We’ll have a terrorist state of this Muslim Brotherhood branch that will seek to destroy Israel,” he said.
Douglas Murray interviews Netanyahu <https://t.co/E7BWdXRSEO>pic.twitter.com/E7BWdXRSEO
— ?????Tun ???????? (@mewapawa) <https://twitter.com/mewapawa/status/1752001142320746699?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>January 29, 2024
In August 2005, less than a month before the disengagement from Gaza, Netanyahu, who was then serving as finance minister and had initially voted in favor of the plan, resigned from Sharon’s government, saying he was “not prepared to be a partner to a move which ignores reality and proceeds blindly toward turning the Gaza Strip into a base for Islamic terrorism which will threaten the state.”
In 2009, four years after the disengagement, Netanyahu returned to government, this time as prime minister and with Hamas having wrested control of the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority.
“So the question was what do you do about it?” he said to Murray of the Hamas leadership in Gaza. “My conclusion was that we have to continuously cut these weeds, but we didn’t get the agreement to actually yank out these weeds because… this would require sacrificing hundreds of our soldiers.”
“We couldn’t get the domestic consensus to make such a definitive solution to the problem of Hamas. That is, no one would agree across the Israeli public to go in and basically destroy Hamas,” he added.
Despite his assertion that he has always believed destroying Hamas was the only solution to removing the threat the terror group poses to Israel, Netanyahu’s policies regarding Hamas and Gaza in the years since 2009 have often contradicted the claim.
In November 2018, then serving his fourth consecutive term as prime minister, Netanyahu approved a plan <https://www.timesofisrael.com/en-route-to-paris-netanyahu-defends-qatari-cash-shipments-into-gaza/>to allow Qatar to fund Gaza’s civil servant salaries with a cash transfer of $90 million, which entered Gaza in suitcases in several installments over six months.
<https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2024/01/F190620ARK10.jpg>
Palestinians receive their financial aid as part of an aid allocated by Qatar, at a post office in Gaza City on June 20, 2019. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
At the time, he said that the decision was made to prevent a humanitarian crisis from erupting in the Palestinian enclave, and defended it as “the right step.”
In March 2019, however, he reportedly acknowledged that the transfer of funds was not just meant to alleviate a burgeoning humanitarian crisis, but to keep Hamas in power, with the goal of weakening the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
“Whoever opposes a Palestinian state must support the delivery of funds to Gaza because maintaining separation between the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza will prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state,” he said, according to leaks from a Likud faction meeting.
He acknowledged then that the money was also a way to ensure Hamas maintained the peace along the Gaza border, saying, “For every step, without exception, there is a price. When you take steps as a leader, there is always a price; if you cannot bear the cost, you cannot lead.”
That same year, Netanyahu’s government coordinated a deal with Hamas to double the number of permits granted to Palestinian workers from Gaza, increasing the quota of trader permits from 3,000 to 5,000 and lowering the minimum age for entering Israel from 30 to 25.
<https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2021/10/000_9P78ZJ-1.jpg>
Palestinian men gather to apply for work permits in Israel, at Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, on October 6, 2021. (Mahmud Hams/AFP)
By increasing the trade permits, Netanyahu hoped to meet Hamas’s demands for economic relief while maintaining a tenuous calm along the border after a brief round of fighting between Israel and the terror group.
After the 2019 decision to increase trade permits, the number of work permits issued to Palestinians in Gaza increased dramatically, and by the eve of Hamas’s deadly onslaught on October 7, nearly 20,000 Gaza residents had permits to work in Israel.
At the same time as he approved moves to strengthen the Hamas government in Gaza in order to keep the peace, Netanyahu avoided taking extreme measures against the terror group, even when it launched rocket barrages and incendiary balloons at Israel, sometimes for days on end.
Despite telling Murray that there would have been no public support for stronger measures against Hamas, Netanyahu has in the past come under strong criticism for opting not to pursue a military response to attacks by the terror group.
In 2019, as tensions flared on the Gaza border, Netanyahu’s opponents voiced discontent with the government’s lackluster response to the incendiary kites and balloons launched from Gaza that burned fields and destroyed the livelihoods of Israelis living close to the border.
<https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2019/03/000_1F864T-e1553941549200.jpg> Palestinians gather near the border with Israel in Malaka, east of Gaza City on March 30, 2019, as they mark the first anniversary of the ‘March of Return’ border protests. (Mahmud Hams/AFP)
At the time, then-Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz <https://www.timesofisrael.com/gantz-deal-to-end-gaza-arson-attacks-shows-netanyahu-filling-hamass-balloons/>accused Netanyahu of “filling up Hamas’s fire balloons with helium,” and said that the decision to settle for a truce rather than a strong response to the arson attacks was proof that “Hamas is dictating things” to the prime minister.
Netanyahu had previously defended his policy of settling for a truce rather than a response, saying that it was in Israel’s interest to do everything possible to avoid a major military operation in the Strip.
<https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2020/08/F200813YS26-e1597507238447.jpg> Illustrative: An IDF soldier stands in front of a fire near Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel that was sparked by a balloon-borne incendiary device launched from the Gaza Strip, August 13, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Throughout the years of Netanyahu’s leadership, the prime minister and his government officials repeatedly reassured the Israeli public at various points of Hamas’s inability to strike hard at Israel, or its lack of desire to do so.
In 2021, upon the conclusion of the 11-day Operation Guardian of the Walls, Netanyahu declared that Israel’s bombardment of the Strip had “set Hamas back by many years” and deterred the group, and promised that Israel had dealt the terror group “unexpected blows.”
As recently as <https://www.timesofisrael.com/gazans-abort-border-riots-as-israel-reopens-crossing-in-reported-egypt-brokered-deal/>September 2023, just weeks before thousands of Hamas-led terrorists burst through the Gaza border and slaughtered 1,200 people across southern Israel, abducting over 250 more, the government approved a decision to reopen the Erez Crossing to Palestinian workers from Gaza despite daily riots along the border fence.
<https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2023/09/F230926AM004.jpg>
Palestinian youths launch incendiary balloons toward Israel near the border east of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, on September 26, 2023. (Atia Mohammed/Flash90)
At the time, experts concluded that the protests had more to do with Hamas’s efforts to manage the territory and halt its spiraling economic crisis than a desire to draw Israel into a new round of conflict.
While Netanyahu himself did not endorse this line of thinking, the government was said to be considering increasing the number of work permits for Gazans, expanding the fishing zone off Gaza’s coast and allowing more imports and exports into the Strip, as a way of ensuring that Hamas would keep the peace.
(5) IDF intel on Oct. 7 plans; it held consultations hours before Hamas attack
More details unveiled of IDF intel on Oct. 7 plans, consults hours before Hamas attack
2 IDF commando companies diverted to West Bank from Gaza border days before onslaught; Sinwar last year publicly hailed Hamas TV dramatization of invasion as ‘what we’re preparing’
By <https://www.timesofisrael.com/writers/times-of-israel-staff/>TOI STAFF5 December 2023, 2:35 am
The top commanders of the Israel Defense Forces were aware, in the hours, days and months that preceded the Hamas-led devastating October 7 onslaught in southern Israel, that the Palestinian terror group was drilling intensively for a planned large-scale invasion, and the Hamas leader even said publicly that this was his plan — but the military still didn’t act and even diverted forces away from the Gaza front, believing that this was empty boasting and that the terror group wasn’t interested in war, according to Hebrew media reports Monday.
In the latest evidence of information and assessments that should have enabled the Israeli military leadership to prevent the mass invasion, Channel 12 reported Monday evening that the intelligence officer of the Gaza Division prepared a presentation in July 2022 setting out “The Mass Invasion Plan of Hamas.”
One diagram from the presentation showed some 20 elite Nukhba Hamas terror squads invading southern Israel from Gaza. The presentation said the terror squads would be accompanied by engineering teams to breach the border fence and defenses in multiple places. The document reportedly included the sentence: “This invasion constitutes the gravest threat that IDF forces are facing in the defense [of Israel].”
Channel 12 further reported that the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate held a discussion three months before October 7, at which an officer — identified only by their rank and first initial, Brig. Gen. Peh — concluded: “We have tried but have not succeeded; we cannot say how [Hamas’s Gaza chief Yahya] Sinwar will act, and therefore commanders in the field should take the necessary precautions.”
It said the conclusions of that discussion were given to the head of the IDF Intelligence Directorate Aharon Haliva, who ordered that intelligence gathering be stepped up, adding that this indeed happened.
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On October 1, furthermore, the commander of the Gaza Division ordered a situational assessment, which found a “sharp increase in drills by Nukhba forces.” Six Hamas battalions were drilling once or twice a week, the report on that assessment said. It specified which battalions were drilling, including several in northern Gaza and one in Khan Younis in the south.
Nonetheless, according to the report, the intelligence officer of the division summed up: “In the tension between the economic benefits for Hamas and the continued disturbances [that were taking place at the Gaza border], it seems that at the moment things are heading toward an arrangement and a calming of the disturbances.”
On the night between October 6 and 7, hours before the early morning assault, an email was sent from an IDF base on the Gaza border describing “certain signs coming from Gaza” about an imminent attack. At the same time, the Shin Bet security agency also saw signs that something was up.
At around 1:30 a.m. on October 7, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi’s office manager was updated about this by the Shin Bet, and then by the IDF general in charge of the Southern Command. At around 3:30 a.m., Halevi was awakened. He asked to arrange a telephone consultation in order to make a situational assessment. That session took place some 90 minutes later.
<https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2023/12/WhatsApp-Image-2023-12-01-at-16.37.17.jpeg> IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi meets with the General Staff Forum at the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, December 1, 2023. (Israel Defense Forces)
The IDF’s operations chief arranged his own consultation ahead of Halevi’s, found the same signs of an imminent attack and sought explanations as to whether it was a drill or a strategic operation against Israel in the coming hours. That consultation concluded that no definitive explanation could be reached, and sought additional intelligence from the IDF’s 8200 signal intelligence unit.
When they had their consultation, Halevi, the head of IDF operations and the Southern Command general were updated on the signs of an imminent attack. Halevi asked for more information and ordered that the Israel Air Force be updated. He also ordered that the intelligence information be checked — including from a perspective skeptical of the prevailing assumption that Hamas was not interested in war.
This, said Channel 12, may have marked the first crack in the conception that Hamas was deterred, but it was not sufficient for Halevi to have ordered preparations for a major incident.
Three drones and a combat helicopter were mobilized.
Haliva, the head of the Intelligence Directorate, was not involved in these October 6-7 consultations. He was on vacation in Eilat. He was updated around 3 a.m. about the worrying signs from Gaza, but took no part in the consultations and wasn’t available by phone for them.
<https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2023/05/ABG_6227-e1684866844121.jpg> In this handout photo, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and IDF Military Intelligence Directorate chief Aharon Haliva tour an disclosed intelligence base, May 23, 2023. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)
Haliva was quoted as later telling those around him that, even if he had participated in the consultations, he would have concluded that it was apparently a drill and dealing with the matter could wait until the morning. “It wouldn’t have changed the final result in any way,” he reportedly said.
Israel had multiple sources of information on Hamas’s drills and other preparations for an assault in the weeks ahead of October 7, <https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-obtained-ignored-hamas-document-laying-out-oct-7-attack-plan-report-alleges/>reportedly including a 2022 Hamas attack plan.
Channel 12 also reported Monday that a TV drama series broadcast last year on Hamas TV that featured terrorists infiltrating Israel was publicly hailed by Hamas’s Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar as “an inseparable part of what we are preparing.”
Hamas TV broadcast the series during Ramadan in late spring 2022, the report said. It dramatized an attack on Israel featuring the use of white pickup trucks, the disabling of Israeli communications, and the targeting of kibbutzim and IDF bases — including the Re’im base where the IDF Gaza Division is located. It also showed soldiers being kidnapped, and the establishment of a Palestinian base at an IDF base.
Along with footage from the Hamas show, the Israeli network showed a clip from a televised award ceremony held in Gaza later in 2022, at which Sinwar handed out prizes to the show’s producers.
<https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2023/12/sinww-e1701720117123.jpg> Hamas’s Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar speaks at what Israel’s Channel 12 says was a 2022 ceremony awarding prizes to a Hamas TV drama on a Hamas invasion of Israel. (Channel 12 screenshot, used in accordance with clause 27a of the copyright law)
“This series is an inseparable part of what we are preparing — the great preparations we are making with our brothers in the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades,” he was shown saying, referring to Hamas’s military wing. Sinwar cited “the weaponry that they are producing” and their “intelligence gathering.”
Hamas’s military wing, he said, “is absolutely planning for the liberation and return.”
Separately Monday, the Kan public broadcaster reported that two companies of troops from the IDF’s Commando Brigade, which were deployed to the Gaza border during the Jewish holiday season in September and October, were sent to the West Bank just two days before the October 7 massacre.
The 100 or so soldiers were redeployed to the West Bank’s Huwara, the report said, following a shooting attack there against an Israeli family.
The commando soldiers had been deployed to the Gaza border by the orders of the Operations Directorate, and they were not part of the regular forces securing the border, according to Kan.
The IDF has previously said forces were not diverted away from the Gaza border to the West Bank ahead of the October 7 onslaught.
A large number of troops had already been operating in the West Bank amid a rise in terror over the past two years.
The IDF has said it will investigate the circumstances that led to Hamas’s attack after the ongoing war’s end.
Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.