7/10 Israeli Gaza Intelligence Failures

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"Secretive Mission? Thousands of Gazans entered with gassed motorcycles, charged GoPros, loaded weapons. The bulldozers were ready."

Today we're going to take a listener question. The question is this, please post a similar discussion explaining Israel's intelligence failures and what will the inevitable intelligence investigation look like? Okay, I'm going to rephrase the question like this. How does a tiny defenseless Gaza invade Israel, a country with one of the best intelligence, one of the strongest militaries in the world, and Israel has no idea? And how does it take them a full day to respond? Now I'm going to calm down and we'll discuss it nicely.

The first method is of course SIGINT. When we're discussing SIGINT with Gaza, we'll define that as the Israeli government's ability, the Mossad, the Shabak, army intelligence, to listen to the phones of bad actors, of terrorists in Gaza. Now when we say listen to the phones, of course we mean cell phones.

It's well known to the bad guys, to criminals, to drug dealers, to the mafia, that cell phone communications can be compromised. So we should assume of course that Hamas and other terror organizations, at least on upper levels or sophisticated levels, have long since dropped the use of any relevant or damaging cell phone communications.

What has been reported instead is that they used old-fashioned copper communication methods in the tunnels. That means in essence a landline. The issue with such a system, a closed system, is that Israeli intelligence would have to get access to that system. That could mean obviously physical access that they would have on their own, or using someone to get access to that system, which in essence would then be human, and we'll get to that a little bit later.

Anyone who has seen or read a Cold War novel, a Cold War movie, will know to what extremes governments and intelligence agencies will go to access or to protect these communications. That means that nations will go through walls, will go through buildings, will go through ceilings, will go underwater just to access these lines, which brings us to Gaza. Gaza, as we know, is not a foreign country.

So we have an old technology, an enemy that is sworn to kill you, and an environment that is not difficult to access. When you put those together, the fact that Israel was caught off guard tells us that they did not have access to these communications, and the fact that they did not have access to these communications is a complete failure, and not a failure of understanding, and not a failure of capabilities, but a failure of will.

Open source intelligence, press releases, speeches, publications, declared goals, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, many other groups have openly declared their intent to recapture Israel and to remove the Jews.

We don't even have to get into satellites or other surveillance means. It has been reported that simple visual surveillance, simply watching what was going on, Hamas and other groups openly carried out training for crossing the barrier, for raiding the residential areas, training for battle. So in a court of law, if you were to have a stated intent plus material preparation, we already have some of the elements needed for conviction. There are reports that supervisors ignored, dismissed various warnings from military personnel on the ground.

What you need for a good HUMINT environment is humans, meaning you have to have access to Gazans. In that sense, this operational environment is not difficult. It's not North Korea.

Israel issued tens of thousands of work permits to Gazans. Many Gazans come in as seasonal labor. Gazans may exit often through Egypt. Gazans come into Israel for medical care. And Gazans also come in for religious purposes, namely for Ramadan.

Entering Gaza are international agencies, NGOs, aid workers going back and forth. Next, you need a reason why the Gazans would work with Israel or presumably a false flag. Any spy novel will explain that a false flag would be Israel posing as another country.

Here we have a population with indeed a great need, great financial need, medical needs. There's also tremendous political internal strife between Hamas, the PA, and other groups. So there are sufficient reasons why a Gazan would feel disenfranchised, be willing to talk to an outsider. So we've established intelligence-wise, it's easy to get to Gazans. And Gazans should have reasons to talk to foreigners.

So the next question we have is, who knew about this operation? If I could get my human officers next to Gazans and Gazans are willing to talk to me, it really doesn't help me if nobody knows what's going on.

So let's recap what happened on October 7. Thousands of Gazans entered Israel. Thousands, fighters, civilians, Hamas, other groups. They came in vehicles, they came in pickup trucks. They gassed up their motorcycles early in the morning, 5, 6, 7 in the morning, they were ready. The bulldozers were ready to break through the fences. Their GoPros were charged. They got their tactical gear and their weapons. Again, thousands.

So the idea that this was some kind of secret mission that very few people were aware about has to come into question. In our calculation, when we see the environment in Gaza, when we see the scope of the operation that went on, and the fact that Israel was caught completely by surprise, that has to indicate to us, yet again, Israeli intelligence had not penetrated in significant levels to be forewarned about this operation. This is not a difficult intelligence operation.

So this tells us yet again that this is not a capability question. It's not a concern that they were unable to do it. But again, points us for the third time to a lack of will.

So what is pushing this lack of will? This risk aversion? What are we afraid of? What is Israeli intelligence afraid of that they cannot operate in areas that should be relatively easy to operate in? And the recurring reason will be all roads lead to the United States. Point being, Israeli leadership, military leadership, intelligence leadership, political leadership, they are all deathly afraid of what will the Americans say? What will the French say? What will the media say when reports come out that Israel operated within Palestinian authority jurisdictions?

So let's go through a few anecdotes to demonstrate this point. In 2017, Israeli military intelligence conducted a highly secretive mission deep into Gaza. Now we know about it because it was reported widely on Al Jazeera and elsewhere in the media. Israel sent in 17 intelligence operatives or military operatives into Gaza. They entered in two vans dressed as civilians, supposedly one extended family going to visit a family member in the hospital.

They were detained by local Hamas authorities, held for 45 minutes, and eventually a gun battle broke out. Sadly, one soldier was killed, another was seriously injured. They had to be removed by helicopter. And in the end, they lost sensitive intelligence equipment. Photos of the operatives were all over the media. Military lingo, a real cluster.

Secondly, just a few weeks ago in Jenin, although the same thing happened in 2015 in Hebron, Israel sent its military operatives undercover into hospitals and went and did targeted assassinations of wanted terrorists. They went in, they went out, apparently got the targets they wanted. Great.

Now, 2010, Dubai, reportedly the Mossad, put together an extensive operation to assassinate a Hamas operative in his hotel room. The Dubai police or counterintelligence agencies put together an impressive report and impressive forensics and were able to determine which Israelis or other foreigners came in, came out, where they stayed, their aliases. Excellent counterintelligence work from the Mossad perspective. They went in, they did their job, they came in, they came out. No one was caught. They did their mission. Also excellent.

Ariel, great stories. What's your point?

Here's the point. Clandestine operations, which we just described, are very risky. There are endless moving parts, unforeseen pitfalls, no matter how much preparation is done. That means travel, timing, casual civilians who are in the way. The operatives could be killed or captured. There's no backup. And that is why these operations are very sparingly done. And it's exactly what overseas intelligence is for. And that's the Dubai operation. The other operations we mentioned in Gaza, in Jenin, in Hebron, these are not foreign countries.

That means there's backup. There's a military. There's an evacuation. There are guns. There are helicopters. There's no limit on the number of additional operatives who could be brought in as needed.

So what has Israel been doing? Israel has been running intelligence operations when they should be conducting military operations. Intelligence operations come with less control and more risk and have to be clandestine. When you control the ground and the air and have overwhelming force, as in Gaza today and yesterday, your operators, intelligence or military, don't have to run around in defenseless vans, in fake uniforms, and be interrogated for 45 minutes by local authorities.

So too in the hospital operations, if anyone saw the videos, they don't have to run around, vulnerable, inside of a hospital, schlepping around wheelchairs and in funny wigs and beards. So why do we do this? Why do we conduct intelligence operations when we should be doing military operations? And again, it's not a lack of capabilities. It's not a lack of ground control. It's not a lack of force. That's all in our hands. It comes down to will, based on risk aversion.

Risk aversion from what will the world say? What will they say if we violate Oslo? The Oslo of 1993 that was supposed to last five years. The Oslo that expired before Y2K. It has failed and been rejected in every regard.

Yet Israeli leadership continued to be haunted by the idea of violating the integrity or the autonomy of areas A and B. So we've self-tied our own hands. And the result is a lack of SIGINT and the lack of HUMINT and leaders wanting to see only what they would like to see and risky intelligence operations that should be military operations. It's the same recurring theme we see over and over again.

Whether it's intelligence, whether it's warfare, rules of engagement, Israel's own diplomatic selections, economic sanctions that don't get responded to. Okay, Ariel, at least give us the silver lining here. And there is one.

There actually is one. Everything we discussed has nothing to do with a lack of capabilities. Everything we discussed has nothing to do with an environment that is too difficult to operate in. Everything that we discussed has to do with Israel having control and power and the capabilities to do what is necessary in intelligence and military. So the silver lining is that we don't have to adjust our capabilities. The capabilities are there.

We have to change the political and the leadership will. And that is something that is in our hands. By putting out the message, by speaking to our leaders, by changing our leaders as necessary and letting it be known that we don't want and we don't expect and we will not accept an Israel that is weak and that is beholden to foreign powers. We will not be embarrassed or ashamed to be strong and powerful and have an Israel that looks out for Israel's interests.