From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
Independent commission blames PM, defense chiefs for Oct. 7 failures: ‘Completely failed to protect citizens of Israel’
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
The independent Civilian Commission of Inquiry into October 7 blames Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former defense ministers and the heads of Israel’s security services, among others, for the government’s failures on and leading up to Hamas’s brutal attack.
In a scathing report, the independent commission states that the entire government had “failed its primary mission” and that the IDF, Shin Bet, and other organizations “completely failed to fulfill their sole objective — protecting the citizens of Israel.”
The commission blames “arrogance” for the fact “the IDF was not prepared for the mass invasion of Israel by Hamas terrorists – even though their plan was known in advance.”
“Arrogance and inherent blindness also led the political leadership to continue to work to strengthen Hamas by transferring funds and avoiding taking an offensive initiative in the face of threats, while idealizing reality and attempting to buy quiet from Hamas using money,” the report states.
Laying the blame directly on Netanyahu, the report adds, “Repeated warnings from senior command officials” to the prime minister failed to spark in-depth discussions of the the threat and “the relationship between the prime minister and the political leadership, and the entire military and professional leadership, is poor or has not existed at all for a long time.”
Then-defense minister Yoav Gallant, the IDF chief of staff, the head of Military Intelligence and their predecessors were also responsible for the debacle, having, among other things, reduced the IDF’s presence along the Gaza frontier and abandoning the IDF’s observation troops to their fate, the commission finds.
Former senior defense officials, such as current opposition politician and ex-defense minister Benny Gantz, share responsibility for the IDF’s failures, including the idea of shifting to a “small and smart army,” the report charges.
Moreover, the IDF chief of staff and senior leadership are responsible for “the lack of an operational response to ‘Jericho Wall’ and the warnings on the night of October 6 and the morning of October 7.”
The New York Times reported last year that Israel obtained Hamas’s plans for its assault on October 7, dubbed “Jericho Wall,” over a year before the devastating attack.
