The American news site Axios reported that Israeli intelligence picked up signs of irregular activity among the movement’s activists in Gaza the night before the Hamas attack.
However, senior commanders of the Israeli army and the General Security Service (Shin Bet) decided not to put the military forces on the Gaza Strip’s borders on high alert, three Israeli officials told the site.
“After monitoring the signals, several high-level consultations were held on Friday evening to try to understand what the new intelligence information means,” the officials said.
The Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, Herzi Halevy, the Director of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, and the Chief of Military Intelligence, Aharon Haliva, participated in some of these consultations.
According to Axios, the consultations discussed whether the unusual activity was Hamas training or preliminary preparation for an attack.
Israeli officials said that one of the possibilities raised in the consultations was to put Israeli army forces around Gaza on high alert in anticipation of a possible attack.
But after consultations, the leaders of the security services decided to wait for more intelligence to arrive.
Several hours later, Hamas began its surprise attack, which led to the death of more than 1,300 people and the injury of thousands inside Israel so far, before Israel launched a violent attack on the Gaza Strip.
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2023-10-13 04:00:43
