By Rathindra Kuruwita
On October 7, Hamas launched a rocket barrage of at least 3,000 missiles against Israel. This was followed by an invasion by land and on air. Militants broke through the Gaza-Israel barrier and forced their way through the Gaza border, entering and attacking Israeli communities and military installations, and killing at least a thousand Israelis in the process.
There has been a lot of casualties in the resulting conflict between Israeli forces and Hamas. Yet no other entity has suffered a greater loss of reputation than has the IDF and Mossad. Over the decades, these two organizations had built up a reputation for efficiency, and their exploits have been and continue to be glorified in books, films, and television series. This explains why people still argue that Mossad let the attack unfold, as part of a 4D chess move.
The success of the Hamas attack, as well as IDF’s inability to dislodge Hamas from all the areas they had captured during October 7, is an indication that Hezbollah is now not the only serious militant group that Israel has to contend with.
The number of Israelis who lost their lives in the recent conflict exceeds the US casualties on 9/11 when taken as a proportion of total population. While more Israelis succumbed during the Second Intifada, with over 1,000 casualties between 2000 and 2005, that is over five years, the current toll comes from just 24 hours of fighting.
In contrast, during the war against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in 1967, Israel incurred only 700 casualties, predominantly among soldiers. The ongoing Israeli response has resulted in nearly 600 Palestinian fatalities, including many civilians. Unfortunately, the toll is anticipated to rise significantly as Israeli operations are set to continue in Gaza in the days ahead.
Gaza is a tightly monitored area. Israel uses the latest technology to keep Palestinians under surveillance. Gaza also has limited access points. The only safe access point is at the Egyptian border and the Egyptian government is not a friend of Hamas.
So how did Hamas smuggle in all the material needed to build the rockets and where did they learn to operate the gliders under the watchful eyes of Israeli surveillance? There were probably thousands of Hamas members involved in the preparation of the attack. That is a lot of people with access to information and the fact that Mossad did not get wind of this is an indication that their human intelligence in Gaza had weakened, despite what everyone believed.
Over the past decades Israel has increasingly relied on signals intelligence. As Amir Avivi, a retired Israeli general, told AP, Hamas found a way around the Israeli technological superiority by going back to the Stone Age, that is by not using phones or computers.
This was also a case of Israel underestimating Hamas and Palestinians. There was growing unrest among Palestinians over the last year, due to the exponential expansion of Israeli settlements, settler violence against Palestinian civilians, and clashes in Jenin and at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which killed almost 250 Palestinians and 32 Israelis. In parallel, there was a drive to normalize relations between Arab nations and Israel.
There had been signs that something big was about to happen. It has been revealed that Egypt had warned Israel of an impending attack, but this warning had been ignored.
Benjamin Netanyahu and his team knew they were stepping on the toes of Palestinians but didn’t care because they believed Hamas was not capable of mounting a serious attack, apart from impotently launching some rockets at the Iron Dome.
No matter how one looks at it, then, this was a colossal security failure in Israel, a clear sign that military and intelligence weaknesses, which were barely noticeable to the most discerning of analysts during Israel’s war with Hezbollah in 2006, had grown.
The Israeli security forces has atrophied during the decades it spent engaging in COIN against unarmed Palestinians and weak militant groups. On the other hand, the Palestinians, who have been living in inhumane conditions for decades, have grown tougher.
Israel has an incredibly good Airforce, and it will pummel Palestinian positions for the coming days. Thousands of Palestinians will die. It will also make life miserable for Palestinians by cutting off electricity and water. Millions will suffer.
Israel also has powerful allies that can cut off UN funding that Palestinians in Gaza desperately need. Given that Israel has not suffered a major long-term setback of this sort in its history, it will do everything in its power to make Palestine suffer.
It is unlikely that Hamas didn’t see this coming. So why did it go ahead with the attack?
Over the past decades Arab states had severed ties with Israel. While Palestinians did not receive any tangible assistance apart from Iran and Syria, the solidarity of other Arab states stood as a strong marker for the Arab world’s recognition of the suffering of the Palestinians. In recent times, however, certain Arab states, like Saudi Arabia, have normalized relations with Israel, and these moves have come at the exclusion of the Palestinians.
A few weeks ago, during a meeting with US President Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu said that a “historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia” was within reach. Hamas probably felt that it was game over for Palestinians once that transpired.
Considering the current bout of violence, normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel seems to have suffered a setback. If the gambit works and rapprochement between Arab nations and Israel derails, Hamas may think the short-term suffering of Palestinians was worth it. Running an insurgency, after all, is not for the faint of heart.
Rathindra Kuruwita is a journalist and a researcher from Colombo, Sri Lanka. He holds a MSc in Strategic Studies from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU, Singapore. He was also a fellow at Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, USA, and a participant of the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) conducted by the U.S. Department of State. He writes on security and international relations to several publications and has written extensively on the Sri Lanka-China relationship.
Factum is an Asia-Pacific focused think tank on International Relations, Tech Cooperation and Strategic Communications accessible via www.factum.lk.
The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the organization’s.
