A Non-conspiracy Theory Of What Went Wrong The Night Before October 7th.

Pretty much since the Oct 7th massacre happened, people have tried to explain how the Israelis could have been blindsided. ¹ There’s obviously a lot of different layers of things which went wrong and allowed Hamas to invade southern Israel and take control of several kibbutzim while commiting unspeakable atrocities for hours on end while the IDF figuratively got its boots on. There’s also been some conspiracy theories about how someone on the inside must have helped Hamas.²

I’d like to lay out a theory which might explain what happened in the immediate run up- i.e. the night of Oct 6- morning of Oct 7th. I’m going to let the facts do most of the talking. (I hope that even if my theory is wrong, you’ll find some of the info interesting.)

1) Last week, Ynet reported the following:

Exclusive: Despite IDF warning of rocket strike, Nova party not shut down, new information revealed

Protecting intelligence sources prioritized over indications of possible rocket attack, cross border incursions and fire on gas rig; only minor steps taken, according to new details in miliary probes of Oct. 7 failings

Contrary to earlier reporting, the IDF not only estimated that Hamas was preparing for a military exercise or to defend against a possible Israeli attack but had seriously considered the possibility that the terror group was about to launch an assault on Israel.

Despite that, the IDF decided on a limited number of actions. Amid calming indications and a wide consensus across the military and intelligence, the IDF opted to avoid exposing sensitive intelligence sources rather than preparedness. These revelations expose a central and dramatic aspect of that night. A participant in recent consultations on the matter defined them "a nuclear bomb."

2) The following claim has been made about Winston Churchill’s behavior during WWII:

The Coventry Blitz 'conspiracy'

It has been claimed in a number of books that the wartime prime minister knew that the city was to be targeted by the German Luftwaffe, but chose to do nothing because it would have alerted Adolf Hitler to the fact the Allies had recently cracked the Nazis' top-secret Enigma codes.

Coventry and its people were sacrificed, the theory goes, "for the greater good" - that is, that the benefits of playing the long game outweighed the short-term costs of leaving the West Midlands city to a terrible fate.

It's not just historians who have written about the so-called Coventry conspiracy, though - it's a theory which lives on to this day.

3) Here’s Ronen Bergman, author of a book about Israeli targeted killings, discussing the beeper operation, and what led up to it. As he notes, the Israelis passed up certain opportunities to act on intel they had on Hezbollah so as not to tip off Nasrallah and co how thoroughly they had penetrated them:

4) If you read Hebrew, it’s well worth reading this article by Bergman. It covers another angle of the failures leading up to Oct 7th- the reliance on electronic spying (‘Sigint’) rather than human sources within Gaza (‘Humint’):

תחקיר: "הכלי החשאי" של אמ"ן ושב"כ - שהוביל לזניחת שאר מקורות המודיעין

Here’s a snippet, via google translate:

The problem arises around an intelligence-gathering tool, which we will call here "the secret tool." We cannot publish the real code names of the projects that make up the "secret tool," but we can say that the "secret tool" is actually a cluster of complex and intricate operational and technological projects that cost many billions. This entire massive project has one goal: to get to Hamas's hidden secrets.

A senior, veteran officer in one of the Intelligence Directorate's collection systems defines it this way: "It's kind of like knowing where our enemies' personal diary is, where they write their most secret secrets. And we can get to that diary secretly, and peruse what's written there for our own pleasure."

This is, at the conceptual level, what Israeli intelligence managed to do with the "secret tool": to get to what's happening inside that "diary," and to get to the secrets written in it. This is a huge achievement, which has aroused astonishment among the few who have been exposed to it. This has often worked and provided excellent intelligence. But this is also where the strategic glitch that gave rise to the failure begins. The "secret tool" was so amazing, "really addictive" in the words of a former senior Shin Bet official who retired in recent years - that at least when it came to Gaza, the intelligence community neglected, at least to some extent, all other sources. Why, for example, bother recruiting more field agents, as the elders of the junction demanded at every meal? After all, we have the "secret tool", there is no need. If something happens, it will be discovered through the "secret tool", and we will know immediately.

And so, slowly, the Shin Bet, Military Intelligence, the Mossad, and also the security and political elite that was exposed to the capabilities of the "secret tool", began to rely on it more and more. At the same time, the importance of other sources (see box) - was gradually pushed aside. The information is not in the "secret tool"? The information is not important.

"The magic of being able to see and not be seen through the 'secret tool' is sometimes wonderful and crazy, no less "This magic, unfortunately, has bewitched the entire intelligence community. Me too, and the political leaders. We all believed that in order to make sure that we don't have another blunder like on Yom Kippur in 1973, we need to make sure that we know how to open that 'diary' in which the enemy writes his secrets, and once that is achieved - nothing will happen in Gaza that we don't know about and we won't be able to warn against. "So in this situation, really, why would you care if you have more agents or fewer agents, if you follow what is said on Hamas television, or follow the density of motorcycles in some future Izz ad-Din al-Qassam rally area? In fact, it doesn't matter what all the other sources say together, because we know what is in the 'diary'. And if the information isn't there - it's not interesting."

---

Now put it all together, and we can posit the following: The Israelis knew that Hamas was preparing something. Halevi, the IDF brass, and Shin Bet didn’t realize just how immediate the threat was, how massive it would be, and crucially, they didn’t want Hamas to know that they were on to them. So they did what seemed to be the smartest option. They activated a series of measures which would (they thought) be sufficient to head off any Hamas adventures, while avoiding going into all-out def-con.

And at the time it would have seemed like a reasonable decision. ‘No need to start exposing all of Israel’s high powered gadgetry. What’s the worst that could happen already? A few terrorists on scooters? Meh.’ The fence will keep them out. And if not, the automatic רואה-יורה ³ will take care of any especially ambitious Nukhbas.’

In hindsight, those decisions were disastrous. That much is obvious. What I’d argue is that in the moment, they would have seemed perfectly reasonable.

….אם ה לא ישמור עיר

1. Here’s an article from Wired magazine from a day after the attack: Israel’s Failure to Stop the Hamas Attack Shows the Danger of Too Much Surveillance. “Hamas’ surprise attack on Saturday is shocking given not only its scale compared to previous attacks, but also the fact that it was planned and carried out without Israel’s knowledge. Hamas’ deadly barrage underscores the limitations of even the most intrusive surveillance dragnets. In fact, experts say the sheer quantity of intelligence that Israel collects on Hamas, as well as the group’s constant activity and organizing, may have played a role in obscuring plans for this particular attack amid the endless barrage of potentially credible threats.”

2. Likud MK Tally Gotliv has pushed some especially nutty claims: Israel's Mossad shuts down 'baseless lie' spread by Likud MK Tally Gotliv. “Israel's Mossad intelligence agency shut down unfounded claims shared by Likud MK Tally Gotliv, claiming that the agency's director David Barnea received information that protest leader Shikma Bressler "communicated with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar before October 7.”"

3. Hamas used suicide drones to overcome that obstacle. See Failure at the Fence:

Other structures called Sentry Tech towers are topped with “Samson” weapons stations, which feature machine guns and sensors. They’re positioned every few hundred yards along the barrier and outside key military facilities and are nicknamed “Roeh-Yoreh,” Hebrew for “Sees-Fires.”

Once the sensors send an intruder alert, IDF personnel can fire the 50-caliber machine guns by remote control.

ROTEM HOROWITZ:

We have to really make sure that we can firmly see a weapon and a threat before we can actually do anything with it. So usually if someone's getting close to the fence, we use it to kind of not shoot at them, but shoot near them, to kind of scare them away. Like, don't come close. We're not going to touch them if they don't come close. The moment they're showing that they're a threat and they're coming close, that's when we start to act.

FEMALE VOICE ON RADIO:

[Speaking Hebrew] In front of the 50 line it shows that there are currently 12 people running towards the fence. There are two motorcycles, roger? We need an answer.

JON SWAINE:

Video from one of the sentry towers on Oct. 7 shows it firing on a group of Hamas fighters as they approached the fence near Kissufim.

MALE VOICE ON RADIO:

[Speaking Hebrew] Commander, commander, we are at war!

JON SWAINE:

But that’s not what happened elsewhere. Hamas fighters had come prepared to evade the towers, and documents recovered after the attack reveal a deep and detailed knowledge of Israeli defenses. In this one, they specifically note the locations of surveillance systems. Fighters also carried with them open-source satellite imagery annotated with coded locations of key structures along the wall.

Armed with this information, Hamas carried out their blinding plan using unmanned drones equipped with cameras to drop explosives on installations like this surveillance tower near the community of Be’eri.

Of the Sentry Tech towers marked on the map, we verified videos of at least two of them being attacked. This one, located near Kfar Aza, was attacked twice by Hamas drones. Incendiary explosive devices with fuses were dropped on the camera and weapons system.