When in 1973 Arab countries suddenly attacked Israel during a Jewish holiday (Yom Kippur), just as the Gaza militias did that Saturday, taking advantage of the end of Sukkot, the so-called Conseptsia, the consensus between services, collapsed in a few days . Intelligence information that the neighbors would not start a war against Israel because they knew it was lost from the start. Six years earlier, the Jewish state had become euphoric after defeating them in just six days and taking Gaza and Sinai from Egypt; East Jerusalem and the West Bank to Jordan; and the Golan Heights to Syria. Egyptian forces also overcame the famous Bar Lev Line, a series of fortifications east of the Suez Canal that were previously considered impregnable, at record speed.
Israel was relatively close to defeat until the United States sent it 93 fighter jets and 26,000 tons of equipment, two days after then-Prime Minister Golda Meir called the battlefield scene “absolutely horrific.”
This Saturday, just 50 years old and a day later, another concept collapsed in the Jewish state: that the barrier on the border with Gaza – in which it invests billions of euros and has sophisticated surveillance systems – is also virtually insurmountable. This control over communications and the network of informants on the ground would allow it to foresee an attack of this magnitude and that, no matter what day of the year, the Israeli army is one of the most powerful in the world. Above all, Hamas – the Islamist movement that does not recognize the Jewish state and has ruled Gaza since 2007 – was more interested in maintaining stability in the impoverished Gaza Strip and preserving the 18,000 work permits in Israel for Palestinians than participating in one new escalation of violence due to the deterrent effect of the predictable response.
“Hamas managed to deceive Israel with a diversionary strategy for months while it prepared the operation,” says Uzi Rabi, director of the Moshe Dayan Center of the Center for Middle East and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, which is defined as happening strategic-military “fiasco”. “It is both a triumph for Hamas and a failure for Israel. They are numbers [de muertos y secuestrados] that had never happened before. “October 7, 2023 will be as historically significant a date as October 6, 1973,” he added.
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The death toll is at least 700 and those kidnapped are estimated to be in the dozens. This is the first time the enemy has invaded its territory since the war that followed its founding in 1948. He noted this Sunday afternoon that there were still militia members on his territory. Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari.
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How could Israel, with its human and technological military resources and informants in a Gaza Strip that has been blockaded for more than a decade, fail to anticipate an action that has been prepared for months? “It was a major failure of the intelligence and preparatory services, but also a conceptual problem: it was assumed that Hamas did not want an escalation,” says Rabi.
Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Kobi Lavie, former head of the Palestinian Affairs Department at the Israeli Defense Ministry, which manages civil affairs in Gaza and the West Bank (COGAT), where he was also in charge of intelligence, disagrees. “It is impossible to organize an operation of this magnitude in Gaza without Israel knowing about it. The intelligence information existed. What has failed is understanding this information. There has been talk of a war for three or four months. But it is impossible for an army to be permanently prepared for something that it does not know when it will happen.
A photo distributed by the Israeli government’s press office shows Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) during an assessment meeting in Tel Aviv this Sunday. AMOS BEN-GERSHOM/GPO HANDOUT (EFE)
As an example, Lavie cites the Iron Dome missile shield, whose batteries are deployed depending on the perceived threat. In just a few hours, the Gaza militias fired an unprecedented number of rockets: 3,000 according to the Israeli army; 7,000, according to Hamas.
Above all, it was a diversionary maneuver from the actual goal: entry into Israel. The militiamen first attacked the military posts at the border barrier, creating images as unprecedented as an excavator opening a crack in it. Palestinians are forbidden from approaching, as happened during the so-called return marches in 2018 and 2019, in which Israeli army gunmen killed more than 300 Palestinians during mass protests in front of the fence. They also exploited gaps in the barrier, flying over it with paragliders or crossing the Mediterranean, guarded by the navy a few kilometers away. Already in Israel they continued killing and kidnapping civilians, police and soldiers, recording videos, walking and shouting slogans without much resistance, as if they were not in one of the countries in the world with the highest military spending per capita.
“From a military perspective, despite the differences, there was a similar approach to 1973. And it was that Hamas didn’t want to change the status quo except to cause a little trouble [forzar a] Qatar [a aumentar su apoyo económico]“But he didn’t have anything big prepared,” says Lavie. “I have no doubt that Hamas itself was surprised by the ease with which it was able to penetrate,” he added.
There is also judicial reform. It is the elephant in the room that few mention at a time of national unity when the leaders of the two main opposition parties, Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz, who are critical of the reform, have made a proposal to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in light of what is coming Form an emergency government during the war. Military commanders and former intelligence chiefs have warned for months about the fragility that Israel’s enemies perceive in the deep political and social divide that the controversial reform has sparked. Not only because of the division and the massive weekly demonstrations since January, but also because of the refusal of service by reservists.
The leader of the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah himself, Hassan Nasrallah, put it into words last July when parliament passed the first key law of the reform. “Israeli society – which believed that its army would not be defeated and that its state should stretch from the Nile to the Euphrates and that Israel was a regional power – has begun to deteriorate in terms of faith, conscience and self-confidence. . It is what sets it on the path to collapse, fragmentation and hopefully disappearance,” he said in a televised address. Amit Segal, one of Israel’s most important political commentators, tweeted this Saturday: “We forgot to be brothers and got a war.”
Humiliated by hundreds of men trapped across 365 square kilometers, Israel is now focusing on a response “that will continue without restrictions and calm until the objectives are achieved,” as Netanyahu put it. “There will be a time for difficult questions and difficult investigations, but now we are at war,” said Hagari, the army spokesman, this Sunday. In 1973, a commission called Agranat investigated the errors that enabled the pincer attack by Syria and Egypt at the start of the Yom Kippur War. When her first conclusions became known, Golda Meir resigned.
Residents of Gaza observe the destruction caused by Israeli bombings this Monday. MAHMUD HAMS (AFP)
An injured Palestinian child cries after an Israeli airstrike on the Shati refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on Monday. Ali Jadallah (Anadolu Agency/Getty)
Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defense system intercepts rockets fired from the Gaza Strip this Monday from the city of Ashkelon (Israel).AMIR COHEN (Portal)
Palestinians assess the damage after Israeli attacks following a surprise attack by Hamas in the Beach refugee camp in Gaza City this Monday. MOHAMMED SALEM (Portal)
This Monday, an Israeli observes a building in Ashkelon, southern Israel, that was hit by rockets fired from the Gaza Strip. AMIR COHEN (Portal)
Column of smoke over Gaza after an Israeli attack this Monday. MOHAMMED SALEM (Portal)
Palestinians rescue items from a collapsed building after an Israeli attack in Gaza on Sunday. Associated Press/LaPresse (Associated Press/LaPresse)
Palestinian militants fire a volley of rockets from Gaza City towards Israel.MOHAMMED ABED (AFP)
A seated Palestinian citizen observes the damage caused by Israeli airstrikes. Ahmad Hasaballah (Getty Images)
Fire and smoke rise after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City this Sunday.Fatima Shbair (AP)
Israeli cars burned on the main road next to the town of Sderot.ATEF SAFADI (EFE)
An Israeli soldier gives instructions to armored vehicles on the way to the southern border with the Gaza Strip. Amir Levy (Getty Images)
A Palestinian protester throws stones at Israeli soldiers during clashes in the West Bank city of Ramallah.JAAFAR ASHTIYEH (AFP)
A Palestinian tries this Sunday to save the body of a person trapped in the rubble of a building destroyed after an Israeli bombardment in Khan Yunis. DPA via Europa Press (DPA via Europa Press)
An Israeli artillery unit fires near the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip this Sunday. AMIR COHEN (Portal)
Israeli bombing of a building in Gaza this Sunday. Hatem Moussa (AP)
A member of the Israeli security forces guarded a Palestinian prisoner on the Gaza border this Sunday, near the city of Ashkelon in southern Israel. JACK GUEZ (AFP)
Two people sit next to the rubble of the Al-Watan Tower in Gaza City, which was destroyed after an Israeli attack this Sunday. MOHAMMED SABER (EFE)
Several Palestinians among the rubble of a collapsed building after an Israeli attack this Sunday in Gaza. MOHAMMED SABER (EFE)
Israeli citizens inspected the damage caused to several buildings by rockets fired from the Gaza Strip in Tel Aviv this Sunday. Oded Balilty (AP)
Palestinian children picked up religious books this Sunday from a mosque destroyed after an Israeli airstrike in Khan Yunis.Associated Press/LaPresse (Associated Press/LaPresse)
Two firefighters worked this Sunday in the rubble of a building bombed by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip. MOHAMMED ABED (AFP)
Several bodies of victims of the Israeli air strikes, this Sunday, in a corridor of a hospital in Gaza City. MOHAMMED ABED (AFP)
Rescue workers and volunteers searched for survivors in the rubble of a building bombed by Israel this Sunday in Khan Yunis, in the Gaza Strip. IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA (Portal)
Debris of a building destroyed after an Israeli attack in Gaza City this Sunday. MAHMUD HAMS (AFP)
Rockets fired by Palestinian militants from Gaza City were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system in the early hours of Sunday. AMIR COHEN (Portal)
Several people in an emergency shelter in Tel Aviv, early Sunday morning. Amir Levy (Getty Images)
A building was hit by an Israeli rocket in Gaza early Sunday morning. Europa Press/Contact/Bashar Tal (Europa Press/Contact/Bashar Tal)
Several bodies lay on a street in Sderot, Israel, after an attack by Hamas militants on Saturday. AMMAR AWAD (Portal)
Israeli soldiers passed the body of a civilian shot in his vehicle in the city of Sderot on Saturday.Ohad Zwigenberg (AP)
A cloud of smoke rose above some buildings attacked by Israel in the Gaza Strip on Saturday. MAHMUD HAMS (AFP)
An Israeli civilian was taken to Gaza in a golf cart by Palestinian militants and captured in southern Israel on Saturday. – (AFP)
A dog in a vehicle that was attacked by Palestinian militants on a street in the Israeli city of Sderot on Saturday. AMMAR AWAD (Portal)
Several Israeli soldiers next to the bodies of civilians murdered this Saturday in the streets of Sderot (Israel). Ohad Zwigenberg (AP)
A man walked next to the rubble of a destroyed building in Gaza following the Israeli army’s attack on Saturday. Fatima Shbair (AP)
An Israeli woman was transported on a motorcycle through Gaza on Saturday after being abducted by Palestinian militiamen at Kibbutz Kfar Azza. Hatem Ali (AP)
An Israeli woman wept Saturday next to the body of a person who was shot while riding a motorcycle on a street in Sderot.Baz Ratner (AP)
A Palestinian boy stands next to a burning Israeli vehicle that Palestinian gunmen brought into Gaza on Saturday after infiltrating parts of southern Israel. STRINGER (Portal)
An Israeli police officer covered a fallen Palestinian attacker near the Gaza Strip on the outskirts of Ashkelon, Israel, on Saturday. Associated Press/LaPresse (APN)
A group of Palestinians carried the body of a young Israeli murdered on the southern border between Israel and Gaza on Saturday. STRINGER (Portal)
A firefighter put out the flames of several vehicles after the Palestinian rocket attack in the city of Ashkelon, Israel, on Saturday. Tsafrir Abayov (AP)
On Saturday, a Palestinian rocket was fired from Gaza into Israel. MOHAMMED SALEM (Portal)
A man fled the flames of several burning cars following Saturday’s Palestinian rocket attack in the Israeli city of Ashkelon. AMIR COHEN (Portal)
Several residents of the Israeli city of Ashkelon on Saturday observed the damage caused to their homes following the attack from the Gaza Strip. AMIR COHEN (Portal)
A firefighter put out the flames of several vehicles after the Palestinian attack in the Israeli city of Ashkelon on Saturday. AMIR COHEN (Portal)
A burning apartment building in the city of Tel Aviv after the Palestinian attack on Saturday. ITAI RON (Portal)
Two police officers carried a woman and a girl from an area hit by a Palestinian rocket fire in the city of Ashkelon on Saturday.Tsafrir Abayov (AP)
A building in the Israeli town of Gedera burns after it was hit by a Palestinian rocket on Saturday. ABIR SULTAN (EFE)
Security forces transported an injured person on Saturday following an attack by Palestinian militias in the Israeli city of Ashkelon. Oren Ziv (AP)
A woman inspected the damage caused to her home in the Israeli city of Ashkelon on Saturday following the rocket attack from the Gaza Strip. AMIR COHEN (Portal)
Residents of the Israeli city of Ashkelon on the street after the rocket attack from the Gaza Strip on Saturday. AMIR COHEN (Portal)
Rockets were fired from Gaza City into Israel on Saturday. SAID KHATIB (AFP)
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