On July 26, 2026 Dr. Avi Perry published an article titled "Was Haniyeh the double-agent behind October 7?". Dr. Perry presents a convincing argument suggesting that Ismail Haniyeh may have acted as a double agent, successfully misleading Israeli intelligence regarding Hamas’s true strategic intentions, causing the IDF to ignore warning signs and thus enabling October 7th. It is very possible that he is right.
However, I have been convinced from the very beginning that this was not merely an intelligence failure, but a calculated plot orchestrated by anti-government factions within the country’s own military and intelligence establishment - a plot that went wrong when Hamas took advantage of its minimal parameters to plan and carry out its barbaric massacre.
My assessment rests on the following core premises:
First, while Haniyeh may have convinced intelligence agencies that Hamas had no intention of attacking, the sheer scale of the preparations was too massive to be ignored.
- Both female soldiers and kibbutz residents repeatedly reported an unusually high volume of hostile activity across the border fence;
- Three months prior to the attack, a senior analyst of Unit 8200 “warned that Hamas conducted intense training exercise that matched the preparation outlined in the IDF-obtained blueprint" named 'Jericho Wall';
- According to a Kan 11 news service, a "Top Secret" Shin Bet document indicated a high probability of a Hamas invasion at 2:58 AM on October 7, 2023, just three and a half hours before the attack began.
Kan 11 correspondent Suleiman Maswadeh reported later that Hamas operatives simultaneously activated Israeli SIM cards that had been monitored by the Shin Bet. This mass activation served as a critical, immediate indicator that terrorists were launching an attack. And the Shabak did not react.
There were additional signals too, most notably when the group’s senior leadership descended into their underground command tunnels;
- Later, numerous media outlets repeatedly reported warnings of “something big" from Egypt. According to Egyptian Intelligence Minister General Abbas Kamel, they explicitly alerted Israel that Hamas was planning “something unusual, a terrible operation";
- A Shin Bet field agent in the Gaza Strip had explicitly warned superiors that Hamas was planning a large-scale assault to take place during the week immediately following Yom Kippur;
• On the eve of the Supernova festival, the event’s security team repeatedly requested information regarding potential terrorist threats from Gaza, only to be completely ignored by senior IDF commanders.
Why?;
Logically, even if the heads of the security services and the military fully trusted Haniyeh, basic prudence and operational responsibility demanded standard precautionary measures. With all these warnings, they surely should have tightened control over the security fence, fortified border defenses, raised combat readiness across the south, and deployed additional reinforcements to the perimeter.
Finally, at the absolute minimum, they were duty-bound to immediately brief the Minister of Defense and the Prime Minister. Yet, even this fundamental step was completely ignored. In short, absolutely nothing was done.
Even worse, Aharon Haliva, the head of Military Intelligence (AMAN), was away on vacation in Eilat and reportedly took no part in the high-level overnight consultations, failing to make himself available by phone. During emergency consultations on the night of October 6/7, senior IDF generals held an overnight phone assessment regarding the unfolding threat. Astonishingly, they concluded that no immediate action was necessary, scheduled a follow-up briefing for 8:30 a.m. the next morning. They acted like a bunch of idiots. But are they really idiots? All of them?
- The Hamas invasion.
- The border fence was a highly sophisticated & multi-layered fortification system. Its electronic sensors were so sensitive that detected the slightest movement. Female soldiers monitoring the screens noted that not even a bird could fly past or a mouse slip through without triggering an immediate alarm. The barrier was broken through simultaneously in 60/80 places;
- Prior to the deployment of the high-tech barrier, a far more primitive fence had effectively contained threats from Gaza since 1996; under that older system, virtually all suicide bombers attempting to infiltrate Israel were successfully intercepted or eliminated;
- Advanced spy satellites above Gaza recorded every movement on the ground, air and sea. The intelligence branch, Unit 9900, was explicitly tasked with relaying this real-time reconnaissance data directly to the military leadership and AMAN. However, the imagery and data received from these overhead assets were not processed in real time - even though Hamas lacked any capability to disrupt this highly sophisticated surveillance network.
Why was this critical intelligence left unanalyzed? How did hundreds of terrorists manage to breach the border completely undetected and unhindered on the ground, in the air and by sea simultaneously?
This means that every single tracking system-electronic and visual, across ground, sea, and air-collapsed simultaneously. This was not a series of isolated failures, but a total systemic shutdown. Could Hamas have orchestrated a blackout of this magnitude on its own? That seems impossible.
The Israeli 'Maginot Line' was not merely bypassed; it was crumpled like a cardboard structure. It was not collapsed by a powerhouse like the German Wehrmacht but by militants wielding primitive weaponry.
- The Guardian reported that Hamas possessed highly detailed and professional military maps. Could the low-skilled fallahs who worked inside the kibbutzim and as cleaners on IDF bases have suddenly transformed into expert cartographers? I find this highly implausible.
- The massacre continued completely unimpeded for 6-8-10 hours, despite the desperate cries for help from helpless civilians. Some people were saved due to the extraordinary courage of individual volunteers and off-duty heroes “Unhappy is the land that needs a hero," Bertolt Brecht wrote. Was it just another ‘oversight’?
- Let’s recall the volatile domestic atmosphere preceding October 7. The "Kaplanist" protest movement relentlessly called for a mass refusal to serve in the military, openly threatened the destruction of the 'Third Temple,' pushed to paralyze the country, blackmailed government. They were thirsty for blood. Ehud Barak went so far as to solemnly declare that the public would ultimately call upon him as a savior once “corpses float down the Yarkon." There was no doubt they were prepared for any provocation. I had initially assumed they were plotting the assassination of a prominent leftist figure - to be blamed on a 'far-right extremists' - but the reality of what I think they planned turned out to be far, far worse.
- Immediately after the October 7 massacre, somebody named Assaf Shmuelovitz managed to infiltrate the Southern Command base in Beersheba by posing as an IDF captain. While inside, he illicitly recorded highly classified intelligence data, operational mission plans, and sensitive specifics in a notebook, subsequently sharing this information with an unauthorized civilian. It caused a shockwave through the military establishment. The official narrative claimed that Shmuelovitz suffered from a “complex mental health condition". Do you believe it? How did he get by security?
- State Comptroller Matanyahu Engelman made exhaustive efforts to launch an independent, objective investigation into the operational failures preceding October 7 and the massacre itself. The High Court of Justice stepped in and barred his inquiry, ruling that “it was not the right time" for such a probe. It wasn't the time? Really?
No, this was not an a error. It was a calculated coup attempt, a plan to show the government's supposed incompetence or to overthrow it, but executed, in the end, at the ultimate expense of the country's own citizens. “When you cut down a forest, chips will fly," Comrade Stalin infamously loved to say. It’s exactly our situation.
There is no ‘conspiracy theory’. It was a classic political intrigue, familiar to humanity since prehistoric times: weaponizing an external enemy, who in the end is granted the opportunity to kill and turns out to really want to destroy the entire nation, to ruthlessly overthrow a domestic rival.
During the Hasmonean era, rival dynasties used Bedouin nomads and The Nabataeans against their rivals. Doesn't this remind you of anything?