Some are wondering where the Israel Defense Forces were during those many hours when Hamas militants roamed at will through nearby villages.
One Israeli remarked, “The army completely failed as a quick-reaction force,” pointing out how some of the attacked communities were forced to rely on their own citizen defense forces while they waited for the IDF to come.
It will take some time before the complete reason why this occurred is revealed. However, it appears that the defenses, which were spotty and unprepared for what they faced, were overpowered by surprise, scale, and speed.
In Hamas’ attack, surprise was essential.
Why did Israel take so long to respond to the onslaught from Gaza by Hamas?
Israeli intelligence was unable to learn of the attack’s planning by Hamas. The gang appears to have engaged in a protracted deception campaign to give the appearance that it was unable or reluctant to carry out a daring attack.
Additionally, it followed solid operational security procedures and probably avoided electronic communications.
The unparalleled scope and speed of what followed was then used by Hamas.
As cover, thousands of rockets were launched. But there were also drone attacks on the surveillance tools Israel uses to keep an eye on events along the border fence. The protective fence was then breached up to 80 times by heavy explosives and vehicles.
In addition to motorbikes and motorized hang gliders, between 800 and 1,000 armed individuals streamed out of Gaza to attack many targets.
At least temporarily, it appears that these swarming strategies were successful in completely overpowering Israel’s defenses.
Israel’s command and control centers, which were already quiet on a Saturday morning and were also a holy holiday, would have been in turmoil as a result of such a wide variety of activity.
While some Hamas fighters targeted military positions, others targeted civilian settlements. With pictures of Israeli tanks in Hamas hands, people were shocked that these outposts were so thinly fortified that they might be overwhelmed.
And when tanks were finally employed to close them, the border breaches stayed open for long enough to allow hostages to be taken into Gaza.
The Israeli security and defense forces had been concentrating more on the West Bank than Gaza in recent months, which could have left vulnerabilities in the defenses. Furthermore, it’s possible that Hamas planned to further divert the security establishment by using the disagreements in Israeli society over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies.
Long considered the best in the Middle East and among the best in the world, Israel’s military and intelligence capabilities. However, it’s also possible that they overestimated their rivals’ capabilities.
The attacks have been compared to those of 9/11 in the US, when none foresaw the possibility of using planes as weapons. It was frequently referred to as a “failure of imagination”
And Israel may also be having problems because it is unprepared for something so ambitious from its enemies due to a similar lack of vision.
Those questions will undoubtedly be among the long-term ones that need to be asked. However, in the near future, figuring out what to do next will take precedence than reflecting on the past.
