The Hamas terrorist attack has been an unmitigated embarrassment for Israel. One thing, however, is clear it is a rapidly developing situation and the number of people dead, injured or captured on either side (currently over 1,100) would change substantially. It was a massive failure of Israeli intelligence and border security. A bunch of terrorists (mischievously called ‘fighters’ in the Liberal media so as to accord them a measure of legitimacy) with home-made rockets, rifles and RPGs, pick-up trucks, and bikes breached the technologically most sophisticated border security system in the world and launched a terrifying assault on Israeli civilians. While eventually, the great firepower of Israel must succeed in decimating them and punishing them for their atrocities, and as the Israeli PM Netanyahu has said, will turn the Palestinian enclave into a “deserted island” and Hamas hideouts into “rubble”, the attack was a shock that will haunt Israel forever.
How ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Unfolded?
At 0630 hours on October 7, the attack was opened up by the Hamas firing a volley of some 2,500 to 5,000 of their home-made Qassam family of small rockets from Gaza City into civilian residential areas of southern Israel within a span of just 20 minutes. This rocket, costing just about $800 apiece, was made first by them in 2001 and since then has been used in large numbers. In the conflict of 2014, they fired some 8,000 of them. This simple unguided rocket has a sheet iron body and uses a mixture of sugar and potassium nitrate as propellant. It is not even spin-stabilized but has fins for some stabilization. The range of the different models varies from 5 to 20 km and they carry explosive warheads from 5 kg to 20 kg.
Under the cover of the confusion created by the rocket fire, less than an hour later (at 0740 hrs), armed Hamas terrorists penetrated Israeli territory in Sderot, Be’eri and Ofakim to unleash their mayhem of murder and rape on unsuspecting civilians, strongly redolent of their medieval ways. Most terrorists entered through breaches in security barriers separating Gaza and Israel. A photograph released by Hamas showed a bulldozer tearing down a section of the hi-tech fence. One video showed at least six motorcycles with terrorists crossing through a hole in a metal barrier. At least one man was filmed flying over in a powered para-glider. A motorboat carrying gunmen was seen heading to Zikim, an Israeli coastal town.
Mohammed Deif, head of the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas has owned up to the attack. Israel’s military admitted that terrorists had also penetrated three military installations around the frontier, namely, the Beit Hanoun border crossing (called Erez by Israel), the Zikim base, and the Gaza division headquarters at Reim. Several captured Israeli military vehicles were later shown being driven into Gaza and paraded there. It is the first time in more than 17 years that an Israeli soldier has been captured in an assault on Israeli territory.
Barbaric atrocities, so very characteristic of Islamic terrorists (as witnessed during Kargil and with the ISIS also) were committed on unarmed civilians and captured soldiers. In one video, an Israeli woman soldier is seen naked, lying face down on a vehicle as she is being assaulted by Hamas terrorists. One of them is seen trampling her with his foot while Islamic religious slogans are being shouted. Social media is flooded with several disturbing videos that purportedly show Israeli women being taken hostage by the group. These videos show the women covered in blood with their hands tied to their backs as Hamas militants push them inside cars while shouting religious slogans.
The Israeli Response ‘Operation Iron Swords’
By the time of writing this article, Israeli forces were busy fighting hundreds or thousands of terrorists who had infiltrated their territory at nearly 30 locations in street battles, and a proper ground invasion of Gaza City with armour was yet to materialize. According to Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, the Israeli forces had regained control of 22 locations infiltrated by terrorists but were still fighting in about 8 of them. That gives some idea of the sheer breadth of the attack. The Israeli air force, however, started attacking specific targets in Gaza City almost immediately by 0945 hrs and videos of buildings bombed were available. Drones were dispatched to issue a warning, and once the iconic 14-storey Palestine Tower containing some 100 apartments had been evacuated, warplanes razed it to the ground.
Epic Failure of Intelligence
This attack is Israel’s Pearl Harbour or the 9/11 moment, the deadliest day in Israeli history, worse than the 2000s suicide bombings or the 1948 War. It reminds me of the 1973 Yom Kippur War when Arab military preparation was able to catch Israel by complete surprise. Even to a layman, the simple fact that in a small city of just 45 sq km size and two million residents, terrorists could assemble more than 2,500 rockets and other munitions with the attack force of hundreds or thousands of terrorists and the Israeli intelligence (Shin Bet, the internal, and Mossad, the external agency—both with a formidable track record) got no wind of the preparation or the intention to fire them, is a crying shame. Chuck Freilich, Israel’s former deputy national security adviser agrees. So says The Times of Israel also. Ironically, as Mick Mulroy, a former Pentagon official and CIA officer, says, it is also a failure of the US intelligence community because they regularly share intelligence with Israel. Was the CIA, claiming to have its eyes and ears all over the world, sleeping? Hamas gets 100% marks for its secrecy or OPSEC (Operational Security).
Apparently, HUMINT (Human Intelligence) was not up to the mark and the terrorists could have defeated SIGINT by keeping their electronic communications to a minimum. After all, the Taliban leader Mullah Omar had also successfully dodged US HUMINT as well as SIGINT all his life. He lived just three miles from a major US Forward Operating Base in his home province of Zabul and died a natural death.
From a professional perspective, it is stupid to blame the political upheavals and protests in the country for the intelligence failure. As you may recall, these erupted over Netanyahu’s proposal to weaken the Supreme Court while he is on trial for corruption.
How the Much-Touted Iron Domes Failed Them
Since 2011, Israel has been touting its Iron Domes costing $1 billion as the world’s most sophisticated air defence system. Basically, the Iron Domes use multi-mission radars to detect and work out an incoming missile’s trajectory and then fire the Tamir interceptor missile to hit it directly or through a proximity fuze. They have some 10 of them. Iron Domes protect from short-range missiles (less than 64 km range). David’s Sling system intercepts short-to-medium and medium-to-long-range missiles, the Arrow-2 system intercepts medium to long-range missiles and the Arrow-3 system intercepts long-range missiles. Iron Dome was developed by Israel with US assistance and the US has bought two of them!
Apparently, the system was simply overwhelmed by the sheer number of these rudimentary rockets despite its claimed success rate of 80-90%. In the past also, it has been consummately shown by independent scientists in the USA that the claims regarding the efficacy of the Patriot system are exaggerated. In December 2017, Houthi rebels fired an unguided missile Burqan-2, a variant of the Soviet-era Scud missile, and as many as five PAC-3 missiles fired at it failed to bring it down and it managed to land very close to its target, the Riyadh airport.
How the ‘Smart Barrier’ Failed
The 6m high and 65 km long barbed wire fence replete with a collection of several surveillance technologies like observation through optical and thermal cameras, laser-based intruder alarms, ground vibration sensors, and radars, etc., backed by human patrols was claimed to be a ‘smart barrier’ against infiltration. It was built after Hamas used tunnels in 2014 and cost some $1.11 billion. How exactly it failed, we do not know as yet. But we know that it gave way to the most elementary techniques of cutting of wires and bulldozers smashing them.
Jonathan Conricus, a former international spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces admits, “The entire system failed. It’s not just one component. It’s the entire defence architecture that evidently failed to provide the necessary defence for Israeli civilians.” It will perhaps take years for the country to analyse and determine what exactly went wrong.
What Is Hamas’ Objective: How Israel Must Deal With It
I agree with Yair Wallach, head of the Centre for Jewish Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London that Hamas does not seem to be interested in occupying or holding territory. Rather, they would like to take prisoners and hostages back to Gaza to be used later as bargaining chips in negotiations for a long-term truce, a large-scale prisoner swap, lifting the siege by opening the international border crossing, and establishing a port and airport in Gaza. Hamas might have been frustrated by Saudi Arabia’s recent willingness to normalise relations with Israel in exchange for a US defence pact and civilian nuclear programme, as brokered by the USA. Many analysts suspect that Iran might have instigated Hamas so as to foil that initiative. Mulroy and Freilich both maintain that Iran has helped them with munitions also.
However, the extent of casualties and atrocities committed by Hamas make negotiations unlikely as they would amount to Israel conceding defeat to terrorists. That would embolden terrorists across the world and the US must be alive to that possibility.
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Hardliners in Israel such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, would like to take the fight to the West Bank also, which forms the main bulk of the Palestinian territories. But we have Hezbollah terrorists on the northern border and opening several fronts simultaneously may not be a wise idea. In any case, the government will also have to deal with public pressure regarding the hostages who might lose their lives. However, if the nation could gird its loins for that, Hamas could be ousted from its control in the Gaza Strip and Israel could restore the position of 30 years ago.
The Meaning of It All
The real test of a man’s or a nation’s power lies in ‘real combat’—not in training exercises. The Soviet Union and Russia are credited with some of the most venerable technological military inventions. Yet, the Ukraine offensive ran aground. They had fared badly in Chechnya and before that in Afghanistan too. Obviously, reputation and actual performance did not match.
Israel too has been showcasing and marketing its high technology weapon systems to friendly nations; its military preparedness as evident from compulsory military service for all young men and women; its surveillance systems like the famous Pegasus; and even its unarmed combat system called Krav Maga.
If they are really so effective, how is it that perhaps hundreds of their soldiers are lying dead or taken captive in such a short span of time? Obviously, real life is vastly different from demonstrations or marketing claims. It is time for a serious reality check for them as well as their customers. As Warren Buffet says, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
The civilized world expects Israel to back up its rhetoric of “returning fire of a magnitude that the enemy has not known”, and respond “in a way that it has never responded before” so as to end this menace of terrorism. Irrespective of the historical, moral or legal issues of Palestinians with Israel, the sheer barbarity of Hamas deserves and demands their complete annihilation. The world expects a second Global War on Terror. By God, they must not fail this time.
