They knew about it and it didn’t seem like something serious or feasible to them. Israeli government officials learned of the attack plan deployed on October 7 in its territory at least a year in advance of its execution. However, the military and intelligence services dismissed that initiative as aspirational and considered it too difficult for Hamas to implement.
This is what ‘The New York Times’ reported this Thursday night in its digital edition based on documents, emails and interviews.
The document, of about 40 pages, was called by the Israeli authorities with the code name “Wall of Jericho.” That text detailed exactly, point by point, the type of devastating invasion that led to the death of some 1,200 people and the capture of hostages, a crisis that still continues.
This information, in reality, only reinforces that first surprise in view of the fact that the Israeli executive seemed to have been on the moon. The experts, and sectors of the Israeli press, agreed that this could only be understood from serious negligence on the part of the government, a neglect of any caution due to internal disputes over the situation of a shaken and persevering Prime Minister Benjamin. Netanyahu.
It was unimaginable that espionage services famous throughout the world for their penetration capacity had no clue about this plan. Now the matter seems even worse: they despised the enemy.
The translation of that document, which the ‘Times’ reporters were able to review, did not establish a specific date for the development of that operation, but it does describe an assault methodically designed to overwhelm the fortifications around the Gaza Strip, take control of Israeli cities and assault key military bases, including a division headquarters.
Always from this report, Hamas followed its plan with surprising precision. The document noted a rocket bombardment at the start of the attack, drones that would destroy security cameras and automatic machine guns along the border, as well as gunmen entering Israel en masse using paragliders, motorcycles or on foot. All this happened on October 7, as the Islamist militants indicated in their script.
Details such as the location and number of Israeli military forces, communication posts and other sensitive information were also included. This raises another question, which is how Hamas managed to gather all that intelligence material and whether there were leaks within the Israeli security services.
This elaboration circulated widely, the newspaper insists, among Israeli military and espionage leaders. Experts, however, determined that an attack of this scale and ambition was far beyond Hamas’ capabilities. It is not clear whether Netanyahu or other senior political leaders saw this document. Iran’s shadow gains strength.
In 2022, shortly after taking that approach, officers in the Israeli military division in Gaza, which is responsible for defending the border, reflected that Hamas’s intentions were not clear. But in July, three months before the coup was struck, a veteran analyst from unit 8200, Israel’s signals collection agency, warned that Hamas had developed intense training exercises that were similar to those described in the document. A colonel on the Gaza border downplayed those concerns.
“I flatly deny that the scenario is imaginary,” that analyst wrote in an email exchange. She reiterated that those training exercises fully fit with the content of the Jericho Wall. “It is a plan designed to start a war, it is not just an attack on a town,” she added.
According to the New York newspaper, Israeli Army officials privately conceded that if they had taken the alarms seriously and had reinforcements available in the south, where the attack was launched, Israel would have been able to minimize the attacks and even prevent them. But, quite the contrary, the Army had no preparation whatsoever and was unprepared, off guard, when the terrorists left Gaza to undertake the invasion.
The security forces have already recognized that they failed to protect the country and the government is expected to appoint a commission of investigation to investigate everything that led to that tragic day. From that mournful day has resulted a disproportionate retaliation against the Palestinians and the anxiety of families awaiting the return of their loved ones, still kidnapped.