Israeli media revealed Hamas’s years-long intelligence efforts and Israel’s failures leading up to the October 7 operation.
Israel’s Channel 12 has revealed that Hamas was monitoring Israeli leaders and security officers near the border with Gaza at least seven years before the October 7 resistance operation. Meanwhile, the Shin Bet intelligence agency confirmed that it was investigating why it had not received information from its collaborators in Gaza regarding the planned operation.
The channel aired, for the first time, “surveillance camera footage and sensitive documents seized from computers” allegedly used by Hamas, the Times of Israel reported.
Channel 12 reported that documents obtained by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) indicate that Hamas had been planning October 7’s Operation Aqsa Typhoon since 2016.https://t.co/csOdMj602Q pic.twitter.com/uIQqL2zepB
— Roya News English (@RoyaNewsEnglish) December 30, 2024
One of the documents aired by Channel 12, dated November 2020, showed that Hamas “had the IP addresses and serial numbers of all of the security cameras in the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council and the Ashkelon beach areas, including Kibbutz Kfar Aza,” which was targeted during the operation.
Another document among the material showcased by the channel showed “a semiofficial list of security guards” in various areas along the Gaza border.
“We see very, very precise and very detailed intelligence …,” Shalom Ben Hanan, a former top Shin Bet official, told Channel 12, according to The Times of Israel.
Hanan said the “resolution, the details that are all so precise, and the very, very wide deployment of many intelligence assets is what is so surprising.”
Hamas was also “tracking local leaders and security officials in southern Israel well before” the operation, the report noted.
Collaborators ‘Not Cooperating’
Channel 12 also said that Shin Bet’s investigation has revealed that some of the agency’s collaborators in Gaza were deceiving Israel and not cooperating with it, according to an Al Mayadeen report.
The report said Israel acknowledged the difficulty of infiltrating Hamas through human agents, noting that Hamas carried out immediate executions of anyone suspected of collaborating with Israel.
Criminalizing Resistance – Tactics to Dehumanize Hamas are Doomed to Fail
Investigations confirmed a severe intelligence failure and a significant defeat for Israel in confronting the attack from the Resistance in Gaza, reported Al Mayadeen, leading senior officials in the military and security agencies to resign.
The Times of Israel said the Israeli army had “conducted several internal investigations to understand what went wrong before and during” the October 7 operation. However, the government “has refused to appoint a state commission of inquiry and has opposed any probes that could include looking at political failures surrounding the devastating surprise attack last year, its lead-up, and its aftermath,” the report added.
Ongoing Genocide
The ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, which began on October 7, 2023, has led to a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented scale. As the death toll among besieged and starved Palestinian civilians continues to rise daily, Israel is currently facing charges of genocide against Palestinians before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 45,541 Palestinians have been killed, and 108,338 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7, 2023. The toll is expected to rise further, with at least 11,000 people still unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes across Gaza.
An Israeli military helicopter fires machine guns at Palestinians and their homes in northern Gaza. pic.twitter.com/oJ3H7zBxzW
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) December 30, 2024
The war, which Palestinians call “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” began after a military operation carried out by Hamas on Israeli territory. Israel reports that 1,200 of its soldiers and civilians were killed during the initial attack on October 7. However, Israeli media have raised concerns that a significant number of Israeli casualties were caused by ‘friendly fire’ during the assault.
Humanitarian Disaster
Human rights organizations, both Palestinian and international, have reported that the overwhelming majority of the casualties in Gaza are women and children. The ongoing violence has also exacerbated an acute famine, with thousands of children among the dead, highlighting the severity of the humanitarian disaster.
As winter grips Gaza, families face not only freezing cold and hunger, but the deep isolation of a world that turns its back.
Read the latest article by Esraa Abu Qamar, reporting from war-torn Gaza.https://t.co/WRo3rMVlNn
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) December 29, 2024
The war has displaced nearly two million people from their homes across Gaza, with the majority of the displaced forced into the already overcrowded southern region of the Strip. The population in Gaza remains trapped in the ongoing conflict, with little access to basic necessities such as food, water, and medical care.
(PC, Al Mayadeen)
