Attack raises questions over failure of Israeli intelligence
WASHINGTON>> The devastating surprise attack by Hamas on Saturday represented an equally stunning intelligence failure by Israel that involved undetected warnings, overwhelmed missile defenses and a slow response by apparently unprepared military forces, former and current U.S. officials said.
American officials said Hamas had achieved a complete tactical surprise. The Palestinian militant group sent hundreds of fighters through breached walls, breaking through with bulldozers and then killing civilians and soldiers in shooting sprees that went on for hours.
None of Israel’s intelligence services had specific warning that Hamas was preparing a sophisticated attack that required coordinated land, air and sea strikes, according to an Israeli defense official and American officials. While the attack also surprised many Western intelligence agencies, they do not track Hamas’ activities as closely as Israel or Egypt do.
The success astounded American officials with experience in the region. Over the years, Israel has set up a network of electronic intercepts, sensors and human informants throughout Gaza. Israel and its neighbors have invested heavily in trying to track and block Hamas’ networks, often intercepting shipments of missile components.
That past success has made all the more urgent a series of questions about Israel’s failures Saturday.
Why was Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, now a dozen years old, apparently overwhelmed by the barrage of inexpensive but deadly missiles at the opening of the attack? How did Hamas manage to build such a big arsenal of rockets and missiles without Israeli intelligence detecting the growing stockpile?
Was Israel too focused on threats from Hezbollah and the West Bank, rather than focusing military and intelligence resources on Gaza? And why were so many Israeli forces on leave or distant from the southern border, allowing Hamas to overrun Israeli military bases near Gaza?
Neither American nor Israeli officials would address the questions Sunday. But clearly the answers could affect the reputation of Israel’s military and intelligence agencies, and the political future of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Hamas has challenged the very fundamental concept of Israeli deterrence,” said Kenneth Mckenzie, a retired Marine Corps general and former top U. S. commander in the Middle East. “It can only be reestablished with the application of overwhelming, shocking violence. And it is only getting started.”
But as Netanyahu’s government retaliates, and deals with the reality that Hamas has taken scores of Israeli hostages, the question of what went wrong will go down in history alongside other such failures. The most famous one in Israeli history was 50 years ago this week, during the Yom Kippur War. Others likened the surprise to the Tet offensive of the Vietnam War or even the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Past rocket barrages by Hamas have been blunted in part by Israel’s missile defense system, known as the Iron Dome. But Saturday, the system appeared overwhelmed. Hamas was able to fire hundreds of missiles in rapid succession, potentially more than the system’s interceptors could handle. The Iron Dome is designed to protect population centers and does not shoot if it determines an incoming missile or rocket will land harmlessly. But it has a limited number of Tamir interceptors, and reloading the system can take time. Hamas, one former administration official said, appeared to have studied the system’s vulnerabilities.
But the system has dealt effectively with large barrages before, former officials said, suggesting that new weapons fired by Hamas for the first time Saturday could be harder to intercept and may have also played a role. Hamas used a new missile system known as Rajum during the attack and employed small drones that dropped munitions on Israeli military positions, according to Janes, a defense and opensource intelligence firm.
Israel has typically used extensive human networks in Gaza and intercepts of electronic communications to generate warnings of potential attacks, according to former U.S. officials. The fact that Israeli intelligence was caught off guard by the strikes suggests that before Saturday’s attacks, Hamas fighters avoided discussing the plans over mobile phones or other means of communications that could be intercepted.