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TEL AVIV — Did Israel’s safety chiefs brush off warnings from ladies border surveillance troopers who had proof that one thing was brewing in Gaza forward of the murderous assaults by Hamas militants on October 7?
That’s the explosive accusation coming from a number of troopers in Israel’s predominantly feminine border surveillance forces — generally known as the tatzpitaniyot, or look-outs in Hebrew. The troopers are telling the media their superiors didn’t heed warnings of bizarre exercise inside Gaza, reminiscent of Palestinian guerrillas coaching with explosives or rehearsing assaults on a duplicate tank and a mock statement publish.
Their statements to the media are piling strain on the federal government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s dealing with a firestorm over final month’s catastrophic intelligence blunder. The nation’s fabled spy companies finally did not detect an impending Hamas onslaught, by which an estimated 3,000 Palestinian fighters killed some 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped about 240.
Along with the implications of sexism, the fees feed a way that Netanayahu and his safety companies have been complacent, believing they’d nothing to concern from Hamas in Gaza. Netanyahu’s opponents even argue he was actively boosting Hamas in Gaza, with assist from Qatar, in a dangerous sport of “divide-and-rule” that performed the Islamists off towards the Palestinian Authority within the West Financial institution.
The ladies’s warnings, revamped a number of months, didn’t correspond to the obtained knowledge that Hamas had been tamed. In what might transpire to be one other main mistake in a sequence of cascading errors, the ladies say primarily male prime commanders dismissed their considerations, insisted Hamas had no plans to go to struggle, and ordered them to cease being so alarmist.
Often known as the “eyes of the military,” the tatzpitaniyot use safety cameras and sensors to watch a 15 to 30 kilometer stretch of land they’re every answerable for. The surveillance contains any small modifications in exercise, together with farmers altering their routines. The work requires nice endurance, focus and hours spent monitoring screens.
Frontline testimony
The tatzpitaniyot, particularly these at a base in Nahal Oz, one in every of a number of kibbutzim overrun on October 7, reported uncommon indicators alongside the Gaza border. The exercise was not simply minor, and included Hamas sending up drones a number of occasions a day within the weeks main as much as the assault.
One of many troopers, recognized solely solely by her first identify Ilana, instructed the Haaretz newspaper they noticed Hamas fighters coaching for assaults. “A month and a half earlier than the struggle, we noticed that in one of many Hamas coaching camps they’d constructed a precise, scaled mannequin of an observer’s place, just like the one we function. They began coaching there with drones to hit the [machine gun] shooter,” Ilana stated.
“Within the final two months, they began sending up drones every single day, typically a number of occasions a day, proper close to the border, some 300 meters from the fence, and typically lower than that,” she added.
Different tatzpitaniyot reported that Hamas gunmen have been rehearsing assaults on armored autos utilizing a duplicate of a Merkava Mark 4 tank, and that Hamas fighters have been digging holes and putting explosives alongside the border. Israel’s Kan public broadcaster and the nation’s Channel 12 tv have aired interviews with border lookouts complaining they have been ignored and have been instructed to cease elevating alarms.
The interviews are including to claims final month by two ladies surveillance troopers, Yael Rotenberg and Maya Desiatnik, who instructed Kan that within the months earlier than the assault, they’d flagged a variety of border habits that anxious them. Each have been based mostly at Nahal Oz, the place 20 tatzpitaniyot have been killed on October 7. Desiatnik was one in every of solely two surveillance troopers on the base on the day who was not killed or kidnapped.
“It’s infuriating. We noticed what was occurring, we instructed them about it, and we have been those who have been murdered,” she stated.
One of many causes the tatzpitaniyot have been dismissed was that they “didn’t match into the narrative that Hamas had advanced from being a revolutionary motion and had moderated and turn out to be extra institutionalized and pragmatic,” stated Michael Milshtein, head of the Division for Palestinians Affairs in Israel’s Protection Intelligence company.
Milshtein faulted Netanyahu not just for misjudging Hamas, but additionally for permitting Qatar to channel tons of of tens of millions of {dollars} through the years to Gaza, a lot of it seemingly spent on the faction’s navy wing. (Netanyahu himself instructed a Likud get together convention in 2019 that “anybody who desires to forestall the institution of a Palestinian state must assist strengthening Hamas.”)
“However it wasn’t solely Bibi,” Milshtein added. “Senior politicians from throughout the political spectrum, together with Naftali Bennett, Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, purchased into the concept, and it was additionally promoted by the Israel Protection Forces. Shabak [Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service] was skeptical at first however then toes the road,” he instructed POLITICO.
“The narrative turn out to be entrenched within the higher echelons of Israeli politics and was subscribed to by prime navy and intelligence chiefs. Governing was meant to average Hamas and the warnings didn’t slot in. However it was all wishful pondering.”
The Israel Protection Forces had no fast touch upon the testimony of the tatzpitaniyot when contacted by POLITICO.
Who will take the blame?
Israel’s navy and intelligence chiefs have accepted general duty for failing to forestall the October 7 assault. “The Navy Intelligence Directorate, beneath my command, did not warn of the fear assault carried out by Hamas,” stated Common Aharon Haliva, head of navy intelligence, in an open letter. “We failed in our most essential mission.”
A string of different protection officers, together with the top of Shin Wager, the IDF chief of employees, and the air drive chief, have additionally stepped up and admitted duty, as has Protection Minister Yoav Gallant. They’ve declined to answer particular allegations, nonetheless, saying that whereas the time will come for investigations, the main target ought to now be on profitable the struggle.
That place has been broadly accepted by opposition events and lawmakers, who additionally say the struggle and releasing the hostages held by Hamas ought to take priority.
Netanyahu has additionally taken that line, however in contrast to his protection and intelligence chiefs, the prime minister has failed to simply accept any blame for the failings that contributed to the Hamas assault. As an alternative, he has insisted that his duty is just to see Israel by the struggle.
In an interview with CNN earlier this month, Netanyahu refused to reply when requested whether or not he took duty for failing to forestall the assault, saying there can be a time for such “troublesome” questions as soon as the struggle was over. “We’re going to reply all these questions,” he stated. “Proper now, I believe what we’ve to do is unite the nation for one function: to realize victory.”
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stated there was loads of blame to go round — he described the assault as a collective failing — however put the courtship of Hamas squarely on Netanyahu.
“Within the final 15 years, Israel did all the pieces to downgrade the Palestinian Authority and to spice up Hamas,” he instructed POLITICO. “Gaza was on the point of collapse as a result of they’d no assets, they’d no cash, and the PA refused to offer Hamas any cash. Bibi saved them. Bibi made a take care of Qatar and so they began to maneuver tens of millions and tens of millions of {dollars} to Gaza.”
“However all of us thought we might flirt with Hamas, [that] they might behave in line with our expectations of them. And all of it blew up in our faces.”