Whether a result of hubris or something more mundane, Israel severely underestimated Hamas’s operational capabilities and intentions, believing that the group was content to sit on the sidelines, even as other groups like Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) were on the attack.
Following Hamas’s devastating attack against Israel last weekend, counterterrorism analysts and policymakers worldwide were perplexed at how Israel’s vaunted intelligence services could have missed such a complex plot.
Even as Hamas militants trained for weeks on Israel’s border with Gaza, the Israelis clung to preconceived notions that the military exercises were mere posturing and that Hamas was more concerned with economic development. Incredulously, this remained the case even as Hamas constructed mock Israeli settlements for practice raids.
By failing to question their own prior assumptions, Israeli government officials and military leaders believed that Hamas was content to sit on the sidelines even as other groups like Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) were on the attack. For the most part, Hamas had remained quiet since the May 2021 cease-fire was brokered by Egypt. The attack was a combined arms maneuver that featured thousands of rockets fired, infiltration by land, and even Hamas militants on motorized paragliders. Jamming devices interfered with Israeli communications devices on the border.
To be sure, there were other important factors, particularly the severe domestic political turmoil enveloping Israel, as thousands of Israelis took to the streets to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to seize control of the judiciary. Retired Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers and reservists spoke openly about how the political instability in Israel was hurting military readiness. The Israeli military’s response time of up to 10 hours to the Hamas attack is proof that military readiness had indeed been attenuated. Relatedly, Israeli forces had shifted resources from Gaza to the West Bank to deal with an uptick in violence in cities like Jenin and Jericho, where Palestinians clashed with Israeli settlers and PIJ had increased its operations.
Tactical failures as well as operational and logistical shortcomings plagued Israel on the day of the attack. Overall, it is now apparent that Israel was overly complacent about its technological prowess, mistakenly believing that a combination of technology and physical barriers obviated the need for manpower. Border surveillance technology gave the IDF a false sense of security. When Hamas attacked Israeli communications outposts with drones, disabling them, Israeli soldiers had no way to communicate with one another. As reported by the New York Times, several other major oversights included failing to monitor Hamas communications and clustering military commanders at a single border base.
The attack demonstrated Hamas’s increased capabilities, including operational security. Because of Israel’s strength in recruiting human sources within Palestinian militant groups, many Hamas leaders were kept unaware of the plan, even as their members trained. Accordingly, details of the operation were not be leaked and discovered by the Israelis. In a recent essay in Lawfare, terrorism expert Daniel Byman laid out a litany of factors related to Israel’s intelligence failure, including a poor assessment of Hamas’ capabilities; a poor assessment of Hamas’s intentions; a misunderstanding of Israel’s own policies; overestimating the effectiveness of Israel’s security services; and a possible unwillingness to heed intelligence warnings.
Whether a result of hubris or something more mundane, Israel severely underestimated Hamas’s operational capabilities and intentions. Yet, over the past several years, Hamas has worked closely with elements of Lebanese Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force to train with sophisticated weapons systems. Advanced training with elite commando units took place in both Syria and Lebanon. And there are reports that Israel ignored warnings about the attack provided by Egyptian intelligence, although Netanyahu has denied those allegations.
At this stage, the Israelis are gearing up for a possible ground incursion into Gaza. Urban combat is always a massive challenge, even for the most capable militaries. This challenge is compounded by the presence of dozens of hostages throughout Gaza. And the Israelis are likely concerned about what else their intelligence services could have missed, such as extensive preparations by Hamas to lure the IDF into Gaza before launching ambushes and detonating improvised explosive devices, classic hallmarks of guerrilla warfare.
Despite the glaring intelligence failure, the IDF remains the most potent military force in the region. The Israelis will be looking for vengeance, so Hamas and its sponsors in Tehran may now suffer from the same mistake that led to this spiral of violence — underestimating their adversaries. If Israel launches a full-scale ground invasion, it could drag other actors into the fray, including Hezbollah on the northern front. If this happens, the conflict in Gaza has serious potential to escalate to a region-wide conflagration, dragging in Iran, and potentially the United States. With little discussion of serious diplomatic initiatives, the Middle East could well be on the brink of another bloody war with no end in sight.
Source: Al-Monitor
