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Israeli army probe acknowledges ‘complete failure’ on October 7: Here’s what it said
As we have been reporting, the Israeli military has published the findings of a probe acknowledging its “complete failure” to prevent the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel.
“October 7 was a complete failure, the [military] failed in fulfilling its mission to protect Israeli civilians,” an Israeli military official said, briefing reporters about the report’s contents, on condition of anonymity.
Here is a summary of some of the report’s key findings:
- The military misread Hamas’s intentions, believing the Palestinian group did not pose a significant threat and was not interested in a large-scale war with Israel.
- The army assumed that Israel’s high-tech border fence would have thwarted any threat.
- Although Israel was aware that Hamas was starting to engage in unusual activity starting from 9pm local time (19:00 GMT) on the night of October 6, they believed the group was preparing to carry out a drill or small-scale attack.
- Israel intelligence and military officials were still holding meetings between 3am and 5am on the morning of October 7 – just hours before the Hamas attack – but concluded there was no immediate urgency, according to the Haaretz newspaper.
- Despite some concerning intelligence, certain signs were also perceived as “reassuring”, like routine activity by Hamas’s armed wing and its antitank unit, the newspaper said.
- Israel’s actions were shaped by the belief that Hamas did not want an all-out war with Israel and would instead focus primarily on small attacks in the West Bank.
- Israeli intelligence was too focused on monitoring senior Hamas officials on October 6 and 7, and so they failed to read the signs of what was happening in Gaza despite ample intelligence, according to the report.
Netanyahu ‘not willing to accept responsibility’ for October 7 failure
The Israeli army chief of staff has been acknowledging accountability since essentially the beginning of the war, and it’s the reason why he’s stepping down next week, resigning his role, something a lot of the Israeli public says the Israeli prime minister should be doing as well.
The former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant says that he also accepted some responsibility for those failures, underestimating, essentially, the power that Hamas had.
This is something the Israeli public already knew because those who had experienced the attacks on October 7 wondered why, first, the military response was so late and so little.
Nonetheless, the Israeli government has blocked the idea of a larger state inquiry. Benjamin Netanyahu does not want to answer any questions about it. He says that when the war is over, some sort of state commission can come in and try to audit these failures that took place.
It’s something that he gets a lot of heat for within Israel because he’s not willing to accept responsibility.
More on Israel’s inquiry into October 7 attack
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/28/israel-army-probe-reveals-complete-failure-in-preventing-october-7-attack
“October 7 was a complete failure. The [military] failed in fulfilling its mission to protect Israeli civilians,” a senior Israeli army official tells reporters after the publication of the investigation.
“Too many civilians died that day asking themselves in their hearts or out loud, ‘Where was the [army]?’” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A man works to put out a fire engulfing a van as rockets are launched from the Gaza Strip after a deadly mass infiltration by Palestinian gunmen in Ashkelon, southern Israel, on October 7, 2023
