Shortly after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, when an estimated 2,000 Hamas fighters breached the Israel-Gaza border in 29 different places, the Israeli security establishment allowed a narrative to form that it had very little or no intelligence about the invasion.
In the immediate aftermath of the invasion , where 1,200 people were killed, this seemed surprising, particularly because of the reputation of Israel’s intelligence services.
An intelligence agency’s failure to collect information on an enemy’s specific intentions can have huge consequences. These failures can be excusable when the hostility between the two sides is so stark that it hinders collection and makes it vulnerable to misdirection.
