Revisiting October 7th to find the truth

October 7th 2023 will be a date etched into the minds of so many people around the world. It was the day the world changed for all of us, as we witnessed what vengeful retribution looks like.

PREFACE | PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR

Image - Getty Images

In this, PART FIVE of my series on the ‘Palestinian Question ’, we’re going to walk together into a minefield that I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, will likely be the most contentious piece of the series. I want to be very clear from the get-go that this is an OPINION piece based on events that are very difficult to research, because the events of October 7 are shrouded in a blanket of propaganda in which the Israeli government has invested enormous amounts of time and capital to shape the narrative.

I’ve spent hours sourcing and carefully reading and listening to verified reporting of the material used for this very sensitive episode. I have provided full attribution for sources; I have gifted important news articles that I feel are important, so nobody is denied access to the reporting because of a paywall. Every effort has been made to use language that is respectful of the hundreds of Israeli citizens who lost their lives on that fateful day.

For the sake of clarity, and to remove any suggestion of doubt. The barbaric attack by Hamas on innocent Israeli citizens was a WAR CRIME. This is not only my conclusion, but that of both the UN and the International Criminal Court. I mourn the passing of all those murdered on a day which history will record as an unconscionable act of cowardice and a senseless act of unprovoked violence. My heart goes out to all those families left behind whose lives will never be the same again.

The biggest problem for anyone attempting to report on events of that infamous day is the carefully crafted narrative that has emerged as part of the justification for the Israelis’ wholly disproportionate response to what was undeniably a horrific assault on the innocent. My aim in this piece is not to seek justification for the attack, or to in any way diminish or misrepresent the anger and pain of those impacted by the events, but rather to look beyond understandable emotion to examine the facts. I aim to ensure that you, as a reader, are able to view events outside of the propaganda bubble created to shape the justification for the industrial-scale murder of Palestinians that followed.

Where to begin is the question. What I’m going to try to do is piece together from the most reliable sources what went wrong and how the Israeli government failed those who relied upon it to keep them safe. I’d like to begin with an assessment from The Centre for Strategic and International Affairs, titled "How Could Israeli Intelligence Miss the Hamas Invasion Plans?" This is a piece by Emily Hardin, Vice President, Defence and Security Department, from the Intelligence and National Security and Technology Program. It was published on October 11th 2023, and opens with:

An intelligence failure is like a plane crash: it is never just one thing that goes wrong, it is instead a series of things that add up to a disaster. Hamas pulled off a complex, multifront assault on October 7—the kind of coordinated attack that takes months to plan and execute. Moreover, tens if not hundreds of Hamas militants were involved in the combination air, land, sea, and rocket assault, suggesting that the circle of knowledge was extensive.

Given the Israeli security services’ reputation, it is inconceivable to me that they missed the preparations being made for this attack. The reason I suggest you read this article is that it provides a roadmap for the questions to ask. It was published just four days after the event; it is not tainted by opinion, a point emphasised by the following:

So how could Israeli intelligence services—among the best in the world—be caught by surprise? It happens to the best of us, and the aftermath is both professionally and personally painful. Examining the root causes of the failure with clear eyes and an open mind is essential to avoiding the same mistakes in the future.

Outlining the reasoning behind the attack in a short piece such as this is impossible, but I would point you to a very important study titled The Strategic Origins of Hamas’s October 7 Attack by Daniel Sobelman, published on January 12th 2026 and available on Taylor & Francis Online. This is a comprehensive research document that analyses all angles and is important reading for those who want to understand both the motivation and the consequences of the attack. In the concluding paragraph, the study notes:

When it comes to understanding the motivations of terrorist organizations, an important lesson from Israel’s disastrous failure to imagine, let alone prepare for, an invasion of a nature and magnitude as Hamas’s October 7 attack, pertains to states’ perception of terrorist groups and the way in which their perception impacts their preparedness. Israel seems to have failed to grasp the implications of Hamas’s evolution from a mere “terrorist group” into a highly organized military entity that in many ways resembled an “army.” From a conceptual standpoint, Israel’s labeling and conceptualization of Hamas as a terrorist organization rendered the visualization of a strategically motivated military invasion from Gaza far more difficult.

To understand the failures, we need to first understand Netanyahu's thinking about how he saw and presented Hamas in his attempts to ensure there would never be any meaningful discussion of a two-state solution. As noted in an Op Ed in The Times of Israel by Tal Schneider on October 8th 2023:

For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.

The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.

As noted in the reporting:

Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset. Far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich, now the finance minister in the hardline government and leader of the Religious Zionism party, said so himself in 2015.

In effect, Hamas was the dangerous pit bull pet on a leash rewarded by Israel, as specifically facilitated by Netanyahu to guard against the ambitions of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for a Palestinian state. An ambition he knew would be widely supported by many of Israel’s allies. By dividing the West Bank and Gaza, Netanyahu believed that he could create an unholy alliance with Hamas to undermine the Palestinian Authority, thus ensuring no discussion on the international stage of the long-desired two-state solution. He wanted Hamas to behave badly, but he believed he could keep the pit bull on the leash.

So confident was he that he could control them that he personally sanctioned funding that amounted to over a billion dollars in funding delivered monthly in cash by a Qatari diplomat escorted from the Jordanian border to Gaza by the IDF, as ordered by Netanyahu. This began in 2018. In addition to the funding, he also increased the number of work visas issued to Palestinians in Gaza to work in Israel

The reporting notes:

Toward the end of Netanyahu’s fifth government in 2021, approximately 2,000-3,000 work permits were issued to Gazans. This number climbed to 5,000 and, during the Bennett-Lapid government, rose sharply to 10,000. Since Netanyahu returned to power in January 2023, the number of work permits has soared to nearly 20,000.

Additionally, since 2014, Netanyahu-led governments have practically turned a blind eye to the incendiary balloons and rocket fire from Gaza.

Effectively, Netanyahu did a deal with the devil. However, it’s clear that by sanctioning funding to Hamas and vastly expanding the number of work permits, he created a permissive environment for intelligence gathering at scale, while facilitating the arming of Hamas fighters and their allies. This was a fatal error which ultimately led to the attack on October 7. You would have to be deluded to come to any other conclusion. The consequences of his arrogance and hubris led to the slaughter of innocent Israeli citizens with weapons funded from cash delivered in suitcases and escorted by the IDF since 2018.

Netanyahu made no secret of what drove his policy position regarding Hamas. The reporting continues:

“[His position was clear], at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

The intelligence failings on the day were catastrophic; there is no doubt. According to reporting in The Guardian by Peter Beaumont on November 28th, 2023:

Israel’s military and intelligence officials were given a highly detailed warning that Hamas was actively training to take over kibbutzim on the Gaza border and overrun military posts with the aim of inflicting substantial fatalities, according to reports in the Israeli media.

The claim made by Israel’s Channel 12 on Monday evening was based on leaked emails from the Israeli military’s 8200 cyber-intelligence unit discussing the warnings.

It should be noted that this is supported by several Israeli media outlets. The Guardian report continues:

According to the leaked emails, Hamas went as far as giving the mocked-up kibbutz used in training a name and even practised raising a flag over its synagogue.

Plans were also intercepted that discussed overrunning a border military base and killing all of its occupants.

All of this intelligence turned out to be remarkably accurate. The arrogant assumption seems to have been that Hamas, the pit bull on the leash, was merely showing its teeth. It appears nobody at a senior level took the compelling intelligence gathered seriously, which takes us to reporting by Maya Lecker in Haaretz on November 20th 2023, in which the subheadline reads:

There is no need to come up with a conspiracy to explain the catastrophic failures of October 7. Criminal levels of chauvinism and arrogance go unpunished all the time

The piece opens with :

Fifteen unarmed women soldiers were killed at the IDF’s Nahal Oz lookout base on October 7, in what is usually referred to as the “surprise” Hamas attack on the Gaza border communities. Seven others were taken hostage – with one of them subsequently killed by her kidnappers in Gaza.

The key takeaway from this heartbreaking article is that the female spotters had, for months, been watching Hamas training at the border

….for months, they had seen Hamas militants training for this very scenario

They did their job, the job the IDF trained them to do. They observed and reported their observations to their commanders. The reporting notes:

They were told by officers of every rank that their reports were meaningless. Some told the spotters that they didn’t understand what they were seeing – even when what they saw was very high-ranking Hamas officials briefing armed men meters from the fence. One high-ranking Israeli officer who visited Nahal Oz base this year was explicit: “I don't want to hear another word about this nonsense,” he said. “If you nudge me again about this, you will stand trial.”

These women who spoke to Maya Lecker had seen their friends killed in front of them and had been forced to play dead for hours among the corpses of those they served with before finally being rescued. I can’t even begin to grasp the level of trauma they suffered as a result of being ignored by men who showed little respect for them, an arrogant, misogynistic decision which resulted in an atrocity that could have been avoided. I could go on and on with reporting on what senior members of the military had been warned of, but I’ll conclude with this piece from The New York Times by Ronen Bergman and Adam Goldman. The reporting opens with:

Israeli officials obtained Hamas’s battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews show. But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.

The approximately 40-page document, which the Israeli authorities code-named “Jericho Wall,” outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people.

It’s well worth your time to read the full article, which I have gift-linked above, as I have done with the Haaretz articles, so they are NOT behind a paywall. There was obviously much confusion following the attack; it was not until weeks later that the actual numbers were reported by Jerusalem AFP, which reported:

A more precise picture of Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel has emerged from social security data, confirming the unprecedented scale of the violence but also challenging some initial testimonies.

This was picked up and reported by France 24, and I have linked the article here.

The final death toll from the attack is now thought to be 695 Israeli civilians, including 36 children, as well as 373 security forces and 71 foreigners, giving a total of 1,139.

While lower than the originally published numbers, it remains a catastrophic and senseless loss of life, which could have been totally avoided if the abundant intelligence that was in the possession of those who could have prevented it had not been regarded as fanciful.

Image - TMJ News Network

What’s important to understand is that it is likely that not all Israelis were killed by Hamas on October 7th. It is now widely reported, including by Israeli news outlets, and verified by them, that the Hannibal Directive was invoked. As reported in Haaretz by Yaniv Kubovich on July 7th 2024 :

'There was crazy hysteria, and decisions started being made without verified information': Documents and testimonies obtained by Haaretz reveal the Hannibal operational order, which directs the use of force to prevent soldiers being taken into captivity, was employed at three army facilities infiltrated by Hamas, potentially endangering civilians as well

So what exactly is the Hannibal Directive? This report by Rachel Fink, again in Haaretz on January 17th 2024, might help explain exactly how it operates. The article is titled: ‘Unlawful, Unethical, Horrifying’: IDF Ethics Code Author on Alleged Use of ‘Hannibal Directive’ During Hamas Attack

The article notes:

It’s a controversial and often misunderstood and misapplied operational order developed by the Israel Defense Forces in 1986 in response to an attempt by Hezbollah to abduct two soldiers into southern Lebanon.

In its original version, it outlined the procedures to be followed when a soldier may be at risk of abduction into enemy territory. The directive, drafted by Yossi Peled, the head of the IDF’s Northern Command at the time, along with Colonel Gabi Ashkenazi and Colonel Yaacov Amidror, emphasized the priority of rescuing captured soldiers from their captors, even if it meant risking harm to the captive soldiers themselves. Notably, the order was formulated without consulting legal experts.

Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram gave the most controversial order during the October 7 battles: to fire a tank shell at a Kibbutz Be'eri house where Hamas terrorists held hostages. As a result:

13 of the 14 civilians who were being held hostage in the house were killed (at least one had been killed earlier). Subsequently, in January, during the IDF's ground invasion, Hiram was also slapped with a disciplinary reprimand by the chief of staff for blowing up the main building of Israa University in Gaza, without receiving the requisite authorisation from his superiors.

Hilo Glazer - Haaretz, 31st May 2024

The bottom line is that we simply don’t know how many of its own civilians the IDF killed on October 7th; what we do know for sure is that the Hannibal Directive was in play across the battlespace. To be VERY CLEAR, this does not in any way diminish the role that Hamas played on that day and the months that followed with respect to the hostages seized. What it does do, however, is point to a directive most of us will find deeply disconcerting. I have included the Haaretz articles in full so you can fully understand the account of that day.

In the next episode, we’ll deal with Netanyahu’s role and the opportunity he grasped to instigate the attempted ethnic cleansing of Gaza. We’ll also look at the West Bank and settler violence because it is vital to understand how Israel operates as an apartheid state. I apologise for the length of this episode, but again, I didn’t want to split it into two pieces.

Have a great Labour Day weekend, and I’ll return on Tuesday with the next episode.

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