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Former IDF Official Says 'There's No Way' Israeli Authorities Didn't Know About Hamas Attack

Speculation continues to mount over the cascade of simultaneous failures leading to worst attack on Israel in 50 years

Published: October 10, 2023
  |   By Adrian Norman

Former intelligence official who served in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) is raising questions about how the recent attack from militant Islamic group Hamas happened without detection by Israeli authorities.

Efrat Fenigson shared details based on accounts from Israeli citizens and official statements.

“A year ago, there was a military operation in Gaza to prepare for such events. And ongoingly, there are trainings for these kind of scenarios. This raises serious questions, for me anyway, about Israeli intelligence,” she explained in a video posted to social media.

“What happened?” she asked, before continuing:

Two years ago, there was a successful deployment of underground barriers with sensors to alert exactly on these kind of terrorist breaches.

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 alongside the fence is triggering all forces. So this? 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.

Fenigson, who is now a journalist and activist, says that the climate in Israel over the last few years has been marked by a general sense of insecurity:

There’s political and social instability and unrest. Public funds are being misused on agendas such as Covid, climate, judicial reform, abolishing cash, and many more.

The current government is highly corrupt, in my view, while the previous one was no better. I don’t care about having a popular opinion. I care about exposing evil forces wherever and whomever they are. So, 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 October 6th, 1973. 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.

Multiple individuals have suggested there is no way that either Israeli or U.S. intelligence forces were unaware that the attack was coming, particularly given reporting showing the assault was planned at least a year ago and that Iranian allies provided military training, logistical help, and tens of millions of dollars for weapons.

Some social media users speculated as to how Israeli authorities missed warning signs of the biggest operation in Hamas’ history, but were, in a matter of hours, able to track down and bomb locations where the group’s personnel and weaponry were housed.

An Egyptian intelligence official told the Associated Press (AP) that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received repeated warnings about the impending attack but chose not to take action.

“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.

The Prime Minister’s office denied having received any advance warnings.

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