Israel's secret services are under fire. People are outraged

The spiral of violence is winding up again in the Middle East. Arab-Israeli wars have been ongoing for over 70 years. However, the Israeli public opinion notes that the excellent intelligence service, which has been prominent until now, has not distinguished itself this time.

In Israel, it is said that whenever it starts to get cooler, residents can expect an increase in attacks from Arab terrorists. This happened in 2015 and 2016 during the holiday of Rosh Hashanah, or the Jewish New Year. The same always happens around Yom Kippur.

Exactly for this reason, the Israeli public is even more outraged that the intelligence and army were caught off guard by the attack. Hamas did not hide its preparations for another terrorist operation. Films from the fighters' training were published on official channels. This included training for paragliding flights, which were used in the attack on October 7th. The Israeli army, having this knowledge, did nothing with it.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, October 7, Hamas fighters blasted their way through the border fence using explosives and then pushed into Israel's interior. The Arabs were able to take over an Israeli checkpoint and penetrate as far as about 15 miles from the border. They shot at Israeli soldiers and civilians with impunity all the way.

Only after the attack had begun did the Israeli army start to consolidate their forces to launch a counterattack. In the evening Israel's Air Force began retaliatory strikes on buildings in the Gaza Strip.

The brutality and scale of the Arab attack surprised even the Hamas leaders themselves. Fighters from the organization were joined by terrorists from Islamic Jihad and other smaller groups. They kidnapped several Israeli soldiers and civilians, including an 85-year-old resident of the Yaffy Adar kibbutz and an infant.

At the same time, the Arabs committed a massacre of over 100 people, including children and the elderly, in the kibbutz Beeri. In the kibbutz Kfar Aza, the bodies of approximately 40 children, who had been beheaded, were found.

Another 260 bodies of murdered civilians were found in the kibbutz Reim in the area where the Nature Party music festival was taking place. In total, over 1400 people died during seven days of fighting, including approximately 240 soldiers.

There will certainly be more victims, because Hamas has declared that for every retaliatory airstrike, they will kill one Israeli hostage. Currently, the terrorists are holding about 100 people.

Israel has called on residents of the Gaza Strip to evacuate via humanitarian corridors. However, Hamas is preventing civilians from leaving the endangered area.

Unit 8200 is responsible for conducting intelligence operations against the Gaza Strip. However, it did not obtain information about the attack being prepared by Hamas. Intelligence has been reporting for some time that Hamas is not interested in conducting armed combat due to improving living conditions in the Strip. And the training films were considered propaganda actions by the Arabs.

The intelligence and army focused on the West Bank of Jordan, where the Palestinians have been carrying out intense attacks for 16 months. This also suited Benjamin Netanyahu, who most settlers vote for. Now the media and public opinion accuse him of neglecting security issues on the border of the Gaza Strip.

- They have been planning this for a long time. Of course, it is a very coordinated attack and unfortunately, they managed to surprise us tactically and cause destructive damage - said Eyal Hulata, a former Israeli national security advisor, in the pages of Arab News.

The Arabs took advantage of the internal turmoil and ongoing political tensions to launch an attack. An additional factor was the war in Ukraine. Now both Kiev and Moscow are blaming each other for the weapons reaching the Gaza Strip from one of the sides.

The American and Israeli intelligence agencies have not found any evidence that Hamas is using weapons that were supposed to be transferred to Ukraine by western allies. There is also no evidence that the Russian Federation provided them. Both intelligence agencies emphasize, however, that weapons mainly come into the Gaza Strip from Iran.

Representatives of Hamas have at least twice in the last year held talks in Moscow. There is no evidence that the Russians inspired the attack on Israel, but they probably knew about it.

For the Kremlin, diverting the West's attention from the war in Ukraine is very important, in the context of ongoing failures and arms aid packages for Kyiv. The Americans announced on Thursday the awarding of the 52nd aid package to Ukraine. The turmoil in the Middle East, especially the actions against Israel, inevitably divert NATO's attention, and above all Washington's, to Israel.

The attack by Hamas will therefore have a direct impact not only on the internal situation in Israel and the significant undermining of Mossad and Shin Bet's reputation, but also likely on the war in Ukraine. Although in this case, the Americans emphasize that this will not threaten continuity and timeliness of supplies for Kiev in any way.