On Tuesday, the National Security Service of Israel took responsibility for not having listened to the warning signals of a Hamas attack planned in front of the devastating strike of the militants on October 7, 2023. But the agency also criticized the Israeli government for the policies that has allowed Hamas to have silently admitting weapons, raising funds and gaining support, among other healing.
The conclusions of The Shin Bet, as the security agency is known, were published days after a similar investigation by the Israeli military discovered that the high officers had significantly underestimated Hamas and interpreted the first warnings that a great attack was bad.
The report published on Tuesday consisted only of a declassified summary, leaving an unknown amount of non -disclosed material. But the summary also clarified the drops of the agency.
The plans for a Hamas raid on southern Israel reached the benches of the agents of intelligence in 2018 and again in 2022, said the summary, but the agency did not deal with warnings as a significant threat. Consequently, the agency said, did not include it in scenarios that explore future clashes with the militant group.
While the bet Shin said he had taken Hamas seriously, he recognized that he had not responded appropriately to the first indications of the attack plans or to the subsequent signs of imminent bloodshed.
The Israeli authorities said to publish the results, even if they maintained parts of the ranked relationship, in light of the severity of the attack. About 1,200 people were killed that day and about 250 people took hostage, unleashing the war in the Gaza Strip.
The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resisted an independent review of the events that led to the most fatal day in the history of Israel. Instead, he allowed each of the country’s security institutions to investigate, despite the public requests of a commission of inquiry.
In a debate in Monday’s Israeli Parliament on Monday, Netanyahu said he had supported the creation of a commission to investigate the Hamas attack, but suggested that this investigation would inevitably generate distorted results aimed at taking him politically.
“I am not discouraged by manufactured investigations and a political hunting,” he said. “I will continue to insist on the truth. I will continue to ask for a balanced commission of investigation that will reach the truth. “
The resistance of Mr. Netanyahu to an investigation and requests of his resignation contrasts with the actions of some other Israeli officials.
The head of the military staff at the start, the lieutenant general Herzi Halevi, who resigns this month, took on the responsibility of what his “terrible failure” called to prevent the attack. The head Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, told the Israelis media Tuesday who was intended to resign until all the hostages taken by Israel had been repatriated, but recognized that the attack could have been prevented.
In its relationship, the Shin Bet also said she was unable to coordinate sufficiently with the military and to establish a clear chain of responsibility. “This is not the standard that we expected from ourselves and by the public from us,” said the agency.
At the same time, the Shin Bet report, unlike the recent military one, has directly indicated government policies as factors that contribute to the attack. He said that the government had allowed Hamas to accumulate weapons and raise funds for his military wing through Qatar. And indicated the re -heal of the government to undertake “offensive” initiatives, including the targeting of Hamas leaders in Gaza.
The agency also cited the treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention and “the perception that Israeli society has weakened”. Before the attack, Mr. Netanyahu advanced a plan to revisit the judiciary of Israel, descending the protests at national level, and many Israelis have blamed Mr. Netanyahu for Hamas’ attack, citing a non -I am not given
The Shin Bet report echoes to the results of an article in the New York Times published weeks after the attack, based on interviews with Israeli, Arabs, European and American officials, as well as a review of the documents and evidence of the Israeli government.
Mr. Netanyahu’s office refused a commentary request on the results of the Shin Bet. The Israeli media reported that the office has released an unofficial declaration to a small group of local journalists who was “attributed to the internal circle of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu”. This declaration states that the Intelligence Agency had presented “an investigation” that does not answer questions “and did not correspond to the entity of the enormous failure of the organization”.
The Prime Minister’s Office presented a series of failures from the intelligence agents, including an evaluation presented a few days before the attack “definitively affirming” that Hamas wanted to avoid a campaign against Israel. He accused Mr. Bar of falling shortly.
“The head of the Shin Bet did not consider it appropriate to wake the prime minister on the night of the attack – the simplest and most obvious decision that it could be imagined,” he said.
Johnatan Reiss Contributed relationships.