Observer and The Washington Post: Humiliation and Defeat for Israel, Its Biggest Intelligence Failure Ever

 Observer and The Washington Post: Humiliation and Defeat for Israel, Its Biggest Intelligence Failure Ever

Observer and The Washington Post: Humiliation and Defeat for Israel, Its Biggest Intelligence Failure Ever

Two British and American newspapers have described the attack carried out by the armed Palestinian resistance on Israel as a "colossal failure" for the military, security, and intelligence apparatus of the occupying state, something unprecedented in its history.

While The Observer, a British newspaper published every Sunday as part of The Guardian media group, considered the sudden attack as something that will remain in people's minds as an intelligence failure unprecedented in the ages, The Washington Post, an American newspaper, stated that Israel "suffered humiliation and defeat" on Saturday.

The British Observer mentioned that the advanced Israeli surveillance systems made the sight of Hamas fighters moving through the streets more surprising.

Although images of thousands of rockets being launched into the sky have become familiar over the years during confrontations between the two sides around the Gaza Strip, the sight of Hamas combat teams roaming the streets of settlements like Sderot was not something most Israelis had seen before, according to The Observer's report.

If the attack was a surprise, it was because Israel's surveillance of Palestinian society is highly advanced and widespread, with monitoring Hamas activities being one of the most important tasks of the security establishment, according to the British newspaper.

The newspaper also conveyed statements from members of the Unit 8200 cyber warfare unit of the Israel Defense Forces in 2014, revealing that the mission of the network recruiting Palestinian informants was to identify potential collaborators in the occupied Palestinian territories. Members of the network were tasked with searching for individuals facing financial and health problems and those vulnerable to sexual harassment among Palestinians allowed to leave the Gaza Strip. The network also targeted prisoners from Palestinian armed groups in Israeli prisons.

However, The Observer stated that Hamas has become more adept at adapting to the military challenges it faces, often putting a great deal of effort into its planning and identifying Israeli vulnerabilities.

The former commander of the Israeli Navy, Eli Marom, was quoted as saying in a live television broadcast that all Israelis are asking: "Where is the Israeli army, where is the police, and where is the security?" He described what happened on Saturday as a "colossal failure."

The British newspaper believes that the Saturday attack will put pressure on Netanyahu from the far right, which has long pressed for a decisive attack on Gaza that could end with the complete reoccupation of the territory.

On the other side of the Atlantic, The Washington Post stated that the Israeli army and intelligence agencies were surprised by the ground, sea, and air attack launched by the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements, leading to bitter accusations after months of warnings from security officials about the deterioration of the country's deterrence capabilities.

The report from Jerusalem noted that Israelis had never seen such a day before, even though they had become accustomed to conflict with Palestinians.

The Washington Post quoted an op-ed by Yossi Verter in the Haaretz newspaper, stating that Israel "suffered humiliation and defeat" on Saturday, adding that even if Gaza were destroyed, it would not expiate the gravest failure since Yom Kippur, referring to the name Tel Aviv gives to the 1973 war that began with a surprise attack by Arab armies, which "began it all with a surprise attack."

According to The Washington Post, all signs suggest that the military campaign in Gaza will be long and complex, as it is one of the most densely populated areas in the world.

Despite using a range of "crude and sophisticated" homemade rockets targeting Israel, the sheer volume of rockets launched on Saturday was unprecedented, according to the American newspaper.

The "most shocking aspect" is that Palestinian fighters managed, according to the military, to invade 22 residential areas in southern Israel.

The recent attack brought dark memories of the 1973 war, making Israelis from various political spectrums wonder how their military establishment unexpectedly found itself so incapacitated to this extent, as stated by The Washington Post.

The report attributed what happened to an internal dispute in what it called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "judicial reform," which "weakened" Israel's ability to deter in a way that emboldened Hamas to carry out the deadliest attack ever from the Gaza Strip.

Source: The Washington Post + The Observer