When he assumed his position as commander of 8200 in February 2021, Brigadier General Y. stated that the unit's new slogan would be "Responsibility has no limit." Beautiful and important words, meant to state the obvious: that the responsibility of the unit, just like its capabilities, is infinite.
After two and a half years, it turns out that the responsibility of 8200 may be limitless, but the responsibility of its commander does not exist. Almost two months into the greatest disaster in Israel's history, the commander of the Central Collection Unit of the Intelligence Corps and the State of Israel still refuses to say "I am responsible," or even the collective variation - "We are responsible."
Last week we exposed here the resounding intelligence failure of Unit 8200, as part of the collapse of the entire intelligence system. Since publication, many more details have accumulated, revealing a much more worrying picture than previously known. To a large extent, this is the story of a predictable tragedy, based on the sin of arrogance: of the political leadership, of the security leadership, of the intelligence agencies, of the command on the ground.
IDF Chief of Staff: "We know what needs to be done, and we are ready for the next stage" // Photo: IDF Spokesperson
It was said in advance that even today only a small part can be told. What is published here is presented with the approval of the military censorship and necessary omissions on issues critical to state security. The decision to publish these statements now, during the war, was not intended to assign blame, but to ensure that things were handled – backwards, and especially forwards – in order to ensure that Israel would not be surprised again by the complex campaign it is currently waging.
Advertising has another reason. IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy stated that the IDF would not investigate what happened until the war, so that it could concentrate on the war itself. "First we will win, then we will investigate," he said, in what came down as an instruction to all military units. But it turns out that 8200 did justice to itself. Brigadier General Y. appointed two former senior commanders to investigate what happened, and reinforced them with regular intelligence personnel from the unit.
This activity is problematic twice. Once because the chief of staff explicitly forbade it. Second time because there is a real possibility of fixing a version here. Since this will be clarified by a commission of inquiry in the future, there is concern that Brigadier General Y. wishes to shape the unit's narrative for the day after. Although the debriefing process is separate from the interrogation process, in the situation that has arisen, at least it is necessary to obtain the approval of the MAG Corps and its accompaniment to the process. Moreover, a possible claim by Brigadier General Y. that the debriefing was intended for internal learning purposes is problematic, since he did not accept any responsibility for the failure.
Worlds have not been turned upside down
Yahya Sinwar changed course after Operation Guardian of the Walls in May 2021. He finished it with very few achievements, and with a lot of damage to Gaza. The result was a twofold path: one, an indirect dialogue with Israel to improve conditions in the Gaza Strip by funneling money (from Qatar) and sending workers to work (in Israel), and second, accelerating military preparedness for war.
In 2022, Israel received a golden piece of intelligence compiled by Hamas, titled "The Decisive Plan of the Gaza Division." This golden know-how, brought by Unit 8200, had everything: the IDF's preparations (in chilling detail) and the ways to deal with it, the manner of breaching the barrier and carrying out the attack, and the targets and objectives during and after the attack. The news spread to everyone. No one inside or outside the IDF, including the political echelon, can claim not to have known her. And if he did not recognize, he was negligent in his role, because this was a constituent golden knowledge that had to lead to one of two things: a profound change of thought that would nullify the prevailing perception that Hamas is deterred and wants quiet, or a series of steps that would refute the knowledge of gold so that the existing concept could continue.
That didn't happen.
8200 did not do so out of it, as required. Her commander, Brigadier General Y., was satisfied with bringing the golden knowledge, but did not turn worlds around the house and abroad to make sure that what was necessary was done with it. He did not build a full collection model for monitoring the Hamas plan, disrupting it, or providing sufficient warning to enable the IDF to prepare for its operation. He also did not lead the unit to such preparations, did not change priorities in collecting sensitive information, did not delve into the issue with IDF commanders, and especially did not restore the competence of systems that had been silenced during his tenure. These are systems that could help provide warnings, such as the tactical communications system (walkie-talkie) and the open intelligence system (OSINT).
Brig. Gen. Y. also did not ensure that senior IDF officials heard firsthand the voices in his unit that cried out in the days and weeks preceding the Black Sabbath that Hamas's plan was being implemented in practice. Even in the hours leading up to the incident, when frantic telephone consultations were held in light of disturbing signals coming from Gaza, he did not assess or indicate that there was a possibility that these signs were related to the same plan and the same concerns voiced by sources in his unit.
Commander 8200 is not alone. The head of the Military Intelligence Operations Division, Brigadier General G., also did not bother to initiate an obvious move to clarify exactly what was happening in Gaza. The Operations Division was established as a lesson learned from the Second Lebanon War, in order to synchronize all intelligence activity with the main objective of the Intelligence Directorate – warning of war. Danzig and his men were familiar with Hamas's golden knowledge, but did not turn it into a work plan: just like 8200, they did not act to confirm or refute it, and thus negligent in their role. Just like Brigadier General Y., Brigadier General G. is convinced that he acted flawlessly. Those around him are even convinced that at the end of the war he will be appointed the next commander of 8200.
Even the head of the Research Department, Brig. Gen. Amit Sa'ar, for whom Gaza and the Palestinians are the core of his expertise, did not demand that all the means of collection be employed to ensure that Gaza does not surprise us. As did the intelligence officers of the Southern Command and the Gaza Division – those who are supposed to wake up every morning with a war in front of their eyes – who were captives of the same concept, and refused any attempt to challenge them mentally.
"Imagination" that has become reality
On 3 October, the head of Military Intelligence, Aharon Haliwa, arrived for a visit to the 8200 main collection base in the south. It was in the middle of Chol Hamoed Sukkot, and Haliva was on a busy work day. He began with meetings in the 91st Division, which controls the Galilee, to ensure intelligence readiness vis-à-vis Hezbollah, continued to the 210th Division in the Golan Heights to see that everything was okay in the Syrian sector, and flew from there to the Negev to check for a pulse in the Gaza sector.
At the base where the counter-servant arrived, who had been warning for a long time that something strange was happening in Gaza, different from everyone thinks, that all the drills and deceptions on the fence are part of a grand plan that will end in an offensive. The opposition, V., compared the plan to what was happening on the ground, and tried to cry out. She sent three detailed emails on the matter, but waved off the claim that the scenario she was painting was imaginary.
Head of Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliwa, Photo: Coco
The only ones who listened to her, and supported her opinion, were those who worked closely with her. Her direct commander, F., even took a leave of absence to attend a meeting that day with the head of Military Intelligence. He tried to warn him, but Haliva dismissed his remarks. The office of the head of Military Intelligence claims that this did not happen: that such a warning, at this time, was not given. Since it was a multi-participant meeting, there are likely enough factors to testify to what happened.
The intelligence failure does not stop at Military Intelligence. Responsibility for Gaza is divided between it and the Shin Bet. This is a strange structure that now requires examination and perhaps rearrangement. The clear advantage of military intelligence is in cyber and various contracts (from satellites to drones, balloons and observations), while the clear advantage of the ISA is supposed to be human intelligence, which will bring it golden news in real time. That didn't happen.
Sinwar shared his exact intentions with only a handful of people around him, and field officials only knew about them in real time early Saturday morning. It is not certain, therefore, that good sources in Hamas would have been able to bring the report in advance, but they would have succeeded in giving the system a minimal warning that would have made it possible to take a few quick actions – raising forces and alert squads and advancing aerial vehicles – that would have minimized the damage.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, the Shin Bet received several indications, which led to consultations at the top of the organization and between it and the IDF. The conclusion of all the participants was that this was an exercise, as Hamas had done several times in the past year. The Shin Bet suspected that something might happen, perhaps a kidnapping, and sent a tequila team (made up of ISA and SWAT fighters) to the south. Here, too, this is a glitch of thought: abduction in Gaza is not a tactical matter, but a strategic event. If there was a danger that it was realizing, much more significant measures had to be taken than those taken.
Some of the officials mentioned here have already claimed responsibility for the intelligence failure to prevent the attack. Prominent among them are ISA Director Ronen Bar, Director of Military Intelligence Haliva and Sa'ar Research Directorate. Brigadier General Y. from 8200 and Brig. Gen. C from the Operations Division act as if the incident does not concern them. On the other hand, the Shin Bet has already made it clear that the head of the southern region, A., and the head of the Gaza division in the area, M., have already made it clear that the responsibility rests on their shoulders. M. was supposed to leave office a week after the attack; He remained, of course, and will retire after the war.
All those mentioned here should go home as part of the post-war amendment. And not only them: current Southern Command Commander Yaron Finkelman and his predecessor Eliezer Toledano, who was a founding partner of the concept and the defensive failure that accompanied it during his tenure as commander of the Gaza Division and later as the Commanding General, as well as the commander of the Gaza Division Avi Rosenfeld and the brigade commanders subordinate to him, who failed in their most basic mission – protecting the residents of the envelope – when the entire concept of security and defense was shattered on Black Saturday.
Sinwar, Haniyeh and other senior Hamas figures, photo: AFP
None of this removes an ounce of responsibility from the political echelon, especially the prime minister. Binyamin Netanyahu is the forefather of the failure in Gaza, the man who built and strengthened and mainly killed Hamas, and blocked any proposal or attempt to assassinate its heads (and there were several detailed ones presented to him in recent years by the heads of the Shin Bet). Netanyahu's duty was to know, to ask, to harass and to demand. He did none of these, on the contrary: he promoted and cemented the concept. The man who sent the Mossad chief to close the suitcase agreement with Qatar, which prioritized Hamas over the Palestinian Authority, who exchanged notes with Sinwar, who focused on peace with Saudi Arabia and convinced himself that the Palestinian problem was solved, and who ignored all the strategic warnings given to him over the past year that the IDF is weakening and Israel's enemies see this as an opportunity to strike at it.
It is unclear what Sinwar would have done if Israel had been stronger. Maybe he would have attacked, or maybe he wouldn't. But the fact that Netanyahu chose not to listen is no less blood-curdling than the fact that the IDF did not listen to the intelligence field echelons or observers. If there had been a little less self-confidence and a little more attention to others in this whole chain, we might not have been caught up in the disaster that struck us on October 7.
Between Gaza and Gaza Village
Many believe that these details should not be made public during wartime, arguing that "quiet shooting," meaning that now they are fighting and after that there will be time for interrogations. I think otherwise. The role of the media is to illuminate dark corners: for the past, and especially for the future, so that similar mishaps do not recur. Since Israel is on the verge of war on other fronts, we must make sure that what happened does not happen again – not in intelligence, not in the IDF and Shin Bet, and not in the political leadership.
Unfortunately, there are those who try to exploit these publications in order to attach responsibility to intelligence and the security establishment and clean themselves up. Netanyahu and those around him have been busy with this since October 7, and even more so in recent days. You don't need intelligence to know this: social media is full of fingerprints.
This poison machine does not hesitate to paste lies to the truth. It is claimed, for example, that Objector W. met Haliva and warned him personally: this never happened. The machine also abounds in tendentious manipulations, designed to indicate deliberate negligence. Thus, the fact that the head of Military Intelligence was on vacation in Eilat on the weekend of the attack. That's true, but Netanyahu was also on vacation and no one is attacking him for it.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tours with Elon Musk in the village of Gaza, photo: Amos Ben-Gershom / GPO
The defense establishment has quite a bit of butter on its head as described here (and this is without going into the details of the failure in defensive preparations), but Netanyahu has a butter factory on his head not only because of what happened before October 7, but mainly because of his conduct after the attack: the mishandling of the evacuees and the communities, the scandalous conduct of the Finance Ministry and coalition finances, the continued maintenance of an inflated government and unnecessary ministers and ministries, The petty politics in wartime, and above all, cowardice.
It is a little wisdom to enter Gaza accompanied by the army and the Shin Bet. Half the world was there before him. It is far more wise to meet with the evacuees from the envelope whose homes and lives were destroyed, and whose loved ones were murdered and kidnapped. Before Netanyahu visits Gaza, let him meet with the residents of the Gaza village.
On Monday of this week, he arrived with Elon Musk in the village of Gaza and took him to the home of Itamar Cohen, who for 27 hours barricaded himself in the safe room with his wife Doreen, their 3-year-old son and 4-month-old baby. For this highly publicized tour, in his ruined house, no one invited Cohen. Netanyahu also never bothered to meet with him, or with the rest of the kibbutz residents. Nor with the residents of Bari and Nir Oz. Listen to them, to those he didn't bother to visit even once during his long years in office until the disaster, because they are not part of his electorate. Look them in the eye: the eyes of those who paid the highest price for the misfunctioning of all the elements in the pyramid he heads.
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