An Egyptian intelligence official said Monday it warned Israel that Hamas was planning ‘something big’ before the attack from the Gaza-based terrorist group.
The Times of Israel cited an anonymous official saying, “We have warned them an explosion of the situation is coming, and very soon, and it would be big. But they underestimated such warnings.”
🇮🇱 As I said: NO WAY they did not know.
“An Egyptian intelligence official said Egypt, which often serves as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, had spoken repeatedly with the Israelis about “something big,” without elaborating.
He said Israeli officials were focused on the… pic.twitter.com/vSai9mvhSe
— Efrat Fenigson (@efenigson) October 9, 2023
As I said: NO WAY they did not know.
“An Egyptian intelligence official said Egypt, which often serves as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, had spoken repeatedly with the Israelis about “something big,” without elaborating.
He said Israeli officials were focused on the West Bank and played down the threat from Gaza. Netanyahu’s government is made up of supporters of Jewish West Bank settlers who have demanded a security crackdown in the face of a rising tide of violence there over the last 18 months.
“We have warned them an explosion of the situation is coming, and very soon, and it would be big. But they underestimated such warnings,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the content of sensitive intelligence discussions with the media”
Bibi’s interests are political first – power, greed – and only then the people of Israel. We were sold. Once again.
The Times of Israel reports:
In one of the said warnings, Egypt’s Intelligence Minister General Abbas Kamel personally called Netanyahu only 10 days before the massive attack that Gazans were likely to do “something unusual, a terrible operation,” according to the Ynet news site.
Unnamed Egyptian officials told the site they were shocked by Netanyahu’s indifference to the news and said the premier told the minister the military was “submerged” in troubles in the West Bank.
The Prime Minister’s Office denied the reports in a statement Monday, claiming they were a “complete lie.”
“No early message came from Egypt and the prime minister did not speak or meet with the intelligence chief since the establishment of the government — not indirectly or directly. This is completely fake news,” the statement read.
However, Israel was not only ignoring clear warnings from its allies.
For Palestinians in Gaza, Israel’s eyes are never very far away. Surveillance drones buzz constantly in the skies. The highly secured border is awash with security cameras and soldiers on guard. Intelligence agencies work sources and cyber capabilities to draw out information.
But Israel’s eyes appeared to have been closed in the lead-up to the surprise onslaught by the Hamas terror group, which broke through Israeli border barriers and sent hundreds of terrorists into Israel to carry out a brazen attack that killed over 700 people and wounded over 2,000.
Journalist and freedom activist Efrat Fenigson shared her key insights, concerns, and questions from Israel regarding the conflict with Hamas.
“Israel has one of the most advanced and high-tech armies. How come there was zero response to the border and fence breaching? I cannot understand that. Personally, I served in the IDF 25 years ago in the intelligence forces. There’s no way, in my view, that Israel did not know of what’s coming. A cat moving along the fence is triggering all forces,” she said.
“What happened to the strongest army in the world? How come border crossings were wide open? Something is very wrong here. Something is very strange. This chain of events is very unusual and not typical for the Israeli defense system,” she noted.
“I don’t care about having a popular opinion, I care about exposing evil forces – wherever they are. To me this surprise attack seems like a planned operation. On all fronts. This is a failure to protect the people of Israel, for sure, perhaps the biggest failure since the Yom Kippur war exactly 50 years ago, if not bigger. – by the way – is it a coincidence it’s exactly 50 years ago, almost on the day? The Yom Kippur War was on Oct. 6th 1973,” she continued.
“If I was a conspiracy theorist I would say that this feels like the work of the Deep State. It feels like the people of Israel and the people of Palestine have been sold, once again, to the higher powers that be. At the same time, this is still very difficult to fathom,” she added.
AP reports:
But the weekend’s assault, which caught Israel off guard on a major Jewish holiday, plunges that reputation into doubt and raises questions about the country’s readiness in the face of a weaker but determined foe. Over 48 hours later, Hamas militants continued to battle Israeli forces inside Israeli territory, and dozens of Israelis were in Hamas captivity in Gaza.
“This is a major failure,” said Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “This operation actually proves that the (intelligence) abilities in Gaza were no good.”
Amidror declined to offer an explanation for the failure, saying lessons must be learned when the dust settles.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief military spokesman, acknowledged the army owes the public an explanation. But he said now is not the time. “First, we fight, then we investigate,” he said.
Some say it is too early to pin the blame solely on an intelligence fault. They point to a wave of low-level violence in the West Bank that shifted some military resources there and the political chaos roiling Israel over steps by Netanyahu’s far-right government to overhaul the judiciary. The controversial plan has threatened the cohesion of the country’s powerful military.
But the apparent lack of prior knowledge of Hamas’ plot will likely be seen as a prime culprit in the chain of events that led to the deadliest attack against Israelis in decades.
