An IDF drone operator who was on duty during the October 7th massacre remounted the day in an interview with Yediot Aharonot.
Less than a day before the massacre he returned from the Far East. "I returned to the country on October 6 directly to a routine, quiet shift in the squadron's operations trailer at Palmachim base. I started a shift in rout ne security duties and finished it in a war. It was a standard shift, from two in the morning until six in the morning patrolling over the Lebanon sector."
"At 4:00 they realized something was happening in Gaza, so I was directed to the southern sector. We saw things moving and happening around 5:00, but could only see an area of a few dozen square meters based on the specific intelligence mission I had received. It was not enough to piece together the whole picture."
At one point he identified suspicious and unusual activity in Gaza and reported it, but the scale of the incident was misconceived. "I saw movements at Hamas emergency positions but, as mentioned, we could not connect it to the larger picture of an impending launch of the largest attack in the history of a terrorist organization. I reported it, but systemically, no one understood that something big was happening in the Strip."
"We flew the drone over several Hamas emergency assets rather than routine assets like headquarters, and I saw brisk movement of people carrying equipment on the ground and vehicles moving. Higher up, the prevailing perception was that it was another exercise and that they were still deep in the Strip, not approaching the border. I was effectively with the IDF's only drone in the skies over the Strip the night before. Toward 6:00 another drone was advanced to Gaza."
When the attack began, the trailer where he was operating shook from the intense barrages of rockets fired toward Israel. From then on he opened fire with the drone in an attempt to stop the Hamas forces pushing into Israel. "Our team was an intelligence collection team and not a full attack team. An attack team immediately came to the trailer in our place. We quickly went to the squadron's operations room and I saw people there somewhat in shock around 6:45. They told us to run to another trailer to take control of another platform, the one that had been diverted from the Hebron area. The attack team that replaced us had meanwhile already carried out a first strike near Netiv HaAsara."