The chief of staff of Israel’s military has ordered a probe into the army’s failure to properly respond to early indications of Hamas’ plans to invade southern Israel, five years before the October 7th attacks.
By World Israel News Staff
Israel’s military was alerted to Hamas’ plans for an invasion of Israel as early as 2018, yet failed to prepare for the attacks in October 2023, according to a report published by Channel 12 over the weekend.
According to the report, Israeli intelligence received information in 2018 regarding a plan, referred to by Israeli security officials by its codename “Jericho Wall,” to carry out a mass infiltration operation into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip.
The revelation that IDF intelligence and other Israeli security agencies had prior knowledge of Hamas’ plans was first made less than two months after the October 7th, 2023 invasion, when The New York Times obtained a translated copy of the 40-page “Jericho Wall” report.
However, the 2023 report did not establish how early on Israeli intel had acquired information pointing to a planned invasion, with the Times claiming that Israeli intelligence had known more than a year before.
The report also pointed to internal Defense Ministry memos from 2016 suggesting Israel’s military had some information regarding Hamas’s intentions to “move the next confrontation into Israeli territory,” the memo said according to the Times.
The Channel 12 report claims that Israeli intel officers had knowledge of the invasion plans two years later, but added that while information was gathered for the “Jericho Wall” document, no comprehensive inquiry into Hamas’ plans was ever conducted.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir has ordered a probe into the failure, assembling a team to investigate how Hamas’ plan was overlooked, given the existing intel on the terror group’s preparations.
The Israeli military’s leadership, and especially its intelligence department, has faced intense scrutiny following October 7th.
On November 10th, the IDF’s Turgeman Committee, which evaluated 25 separate internal probes regarding the failures before and during October 7th, found serious flaws in not only the security establishment’s Gaza policies, but also its handling of security intelligence information and even in the basic decision-making processes.
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