An extensive investigation conducted by Channel 12 News reveals a disturbing picture of the intelligence failure that led to the October 7th massacre.
Several hours after numerous SIM cards were unexpectedly turned on across Gaza with additional hints warning of a major attack, the first phone call was made to the assistant of Chief of Intelligence, General Aharon Haliva.
Haliva did not cut short his vacation in Eilat that weekend. The second phone call is to his commander, Southern Command Chief Yaron Finkelman, who left his home in the north, arrived at the command post, and updated Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi.
Commander Yossi Shahar, who leads the elite SIGINT force Unit 8200, also made no headway. Further investigation showed that one intelligence system had not been working for several hours. Shahar told soldiers insisting that it be fixed immediately: 'It will take a few hours, but eventually we will manage.'
Arutz Sheva - Israel National News learned two weeks after the massacre that the system frequently crashed in the six months leading up to the massacre, but the report prepared on the topic was rejected by the censor.
Soldiers at Unit 8200 also identified unusual events in the Strip, but took no action beyond sending six emails to an irrelevant address. No situational assessments were held in the unit or at the command posts the soldiers contacted.
At five in the morning, there is a conversation with the head of the Research Division at Intelligence, Amit Saar, who rejectes the warnings as not indicating anything unusual.
The investigation also reveals that the 'Walls of Jericho' plan, Hamas's plan to conquer Israeli settlements and IDF bases, written in October 2021, was not brought forward to Chief of Staff Halevi and his deputy Amir Baram, nor to Operations Directorate head Oded Basiuk and Operations Division head Shlomi Binder. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant were also unaware of the plan, as was the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, Yuli Edelstein. Research Division head at Intelligence Amit Saar and the head of the operator's department firmly claim they had never heard of the plan.
Senior Air Force officials, including Commander Tomer Bar, also did not receive the plan. Brigadier General (Res.) Yaron Rosen, head of the joint force and helicopters branch in the Air Force, said, "We arrived on October 7th without a real operational plan to counter the other side's operational plan. This is where the failure began."
The investigation also reveals that when Yossi Shahar began commanding Unit 8200 three years ago, new signs with the unit's objectives were put up at the unit bases. The terms 'warning' and 'intelligence' completely disappeared in favor of cyber superiority. In the unit's vision, there is also the strengthening of Israel's social resilience. Core roles have been replaced by a list of values created by Shahar, such as 'purity of weapons in the digital age' and 'faith in humanity and the equal right to be different.'
IDF Spokesperson's Unit responded to the investigation: "The IDF is investigating the events of October 7th and what preceded them as part of the operational investigation. Once concluded, it will be presented to the public transparently while safeguarding our forces' security and information security."