Israel\u2019s Shin Bet security agency has said it \u201cfailed in its mission\u201d to prevent Hamas\u2019 October 7 attack by ignoring repeated warning signs. <\/p>\n
Shin Bet\u2019s chief, Ronen Bar, said in a statement that if Shin Bet had \u201cacted differently in the years leading up to the attack and on the night of the attack (\u2026) the massacre would have been prevented.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAs the head of the organization, I will carry this heavy burden on my shoulders for the rest of my life,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
In a summary of an internal investigation published Tuesday evening, Shin Bet, officially the Israel Security Agency, said that a wide range of factors were responsible for Hamas\u2019 ability to stage the catastrophic attack. <\/p>\n
Among them, Shin Bet said, were Qatar\u2019s years-long payments to Hamas. Those payments were blessed by Israel, whose government believed it was beneficial to drive a political wedge between Gaza and the West Bank. <\/p>\n
Despite being made aware of Hamas\u2019 plan for a broad offensive, known as \u201cThe Walls of Jericho,\u201d in two different iterations in 2018 and 2022, the security agency failed to prevent the biggest terrorist attack in the country\u2019s history. <\/p>\n
The security agency received a sequence of signs that Hamas was preparing for an emergency, but decided the militant group were \u201cnot interested in escalation\u201d and the plans were never perceived as an active threat, Shin Bet said. <\/p>\n
The report summary says that the agency had huge gaps in \u201cthe recruitment and operation of human agents\u201d in Gaza and that it was unclear where the Shin Bet and Israeli military responsibilities for detecting an attack from Gaza lay. <\/p>\n
Hamas and its allies killed more than 1,200 people and took 251 hostage. <\/p>\n
The investigation summary was published five days after an investigation by the Israeli military that highlighted gaps in intelligence gathering, flawed assumptions about Hamas, and \u201csystemic\u201d failures in the Israel Defense Force\u2019s preparedness and response. <\/p>\n
But Shin Bet says that it alone does not entirely carry the burden for the October 7 attack. <\/p>\n
Shin Bet also blamed policies enacted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s government as contributing factors, setting off a political firestorm. <\/p>\n
Among the factors that contributed to Hamas\u2019 decision to launch the attack, the report summary said, were Israeli politicians\u2019 visits to the Al Aqsa compound in Jerusalem, \u201cthe treatment of prisoners, and the perception that Israeli society has been weakened due to the damage to social cohesion.\u201d <\/p>\n
The source close to Netanyahu also accused the Shin Bet chief of failing to wake up the prime minister on the night of the attack, despite it being \u201cthe most basic and obvious decision imaginable.\u201d <\/p>\n
Netanyahu\u2019s team has ramped up its criticism of the agency and Bar in recent weeks, especially after it was revealed that Shin Bet is investigating several people in Netanyahu\u2019s office for inappropriately lobbying on behalf of Qatar\u2019s government \u2013\u202fsomething his office denies. <\/p>\n
He removed Bar and the head of the Mossad, David Barnea, from the negotiating team engaging in indirect talks with Hamas. <\/p>\n
Opposition leader Yair Lapid slammed Netanyahu for what he said was shirking responsibility for the devastating attack. \u201cThe prime minister continues to try to shift the blame onto others, this time it\u2019s \u2018they didn\u2019t wake me up,\u2019\u201d Lapid said on X Tuesday. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis country has been awake for 515 days, we still have hostages in Gaza. It\u2019s time for you to wake up, apologize, take responsibility. This happened on your watch,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s former defense minister Benny Gantz also criticized Netanyahu for \u201cthrowing mud at the Shin Bet\u201d instead of apologizing. \u201cThere is no leadership, no responsibility and there is no limit to cynicism,\u201d Gantz said on X. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Israel\u2019s Shin Bet security agency has said it \u201cfailed in its mission\u201d to prevent Hamas\u2019 October 7 attack by ignoring repeated warning signs. Shin Bet\u2019s chief, Ronen Bar, said in a statement that if Shin…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4724,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}