IDF warnings ignored prior to Oct. 7
ABC has an article on the IDf’s Unit 414 which monitored cross-border activity in Gaza.
Stationed at the Nahal Oz IDF base, less than half a mile from Gaza, they were known as “the eyes of the military”– monitoring hundreds of surveillance cameras overlooking the border, 24/7. They were always watching and always on high alert.
“It felt like something out of the ordinary was about to happen,” said Roni Lifshitz, an observation soldier who was part of Unit 414 but happened to be away at a training on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a surprise terrorist attack on Israel.
According to Lifshitz, in the days leading up to Oct. 7, her unit was reporting unusual activity in Gaza on a daily basis — so much so that she says there was apparently a running joke on base: Who would be on duty the day Hamas attacked?
Her account lines up with what Ori Asaf said he heard from his girlfriend, Sgt. Osher Barzilay, a communications officer who was killed inside the Nahal Oz command center. Asaf showed ABC News text messages Barzilay sent him just two weeks before Oct 7.
“All the violent disturbances and incendiary balloons are in our sector,” Barzilay wrote. “3 violent disturbances, people armed with weapons and explosives. The fence is destroyed.”
Asaf said Barzilay couldn’t tell him everything, since much of the information was classified. But he said she repeatedly told him she saw Hamas burying explosives near the border.
Lifshitz said the warning signs were there, but those at the top didn’t take them seriously.
“We were completely ignored, they belittled us,” she said. “No one really listened to us, mainly because I am not an officer. Because I am just a simple 20-year-old who knows nothing.”
Last November, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ABC News: “The responsibility of a government is to protect the people. Clearly, that responsibility wasn’t met. And we’ll have a lot of questions, a lot of investigations. But I have now one responsibility. The responsibility is to defeat Hamas.”
Eyal Eshel heard similar stories from his daughter Roni Eshel, who was also part of Unit 414, and Roni Lifshitz’s best friend. She was just 19.
“‘Dad, the cameras on the fence, in this point, are not working. Dad, there is a problem in the fence here.’ Nobody came to fix it,” he said.
In a chilling phone conversation obtained exclusively by ABC News, Roni Eshel can be heard telling her mother Sharon on Sept. 27 that she’s overwhelmed by what she’s seeing.
“Listen, three days in a row, attempted infiltrations, today there was an attack at Karni, explosive devices,” she said.
Eyal Eshel took ABC News inside what’s left of the Nahal Oz base, and into the command center where his daughter would have watched Hamas’ incursion, reporting it in real time — until their cameras were neutralized.
When over a hundred Hamas fighters eventually reached the base, they set the command center on fire. Many of the young observation soldiers were trapped inside and burned alive.
“They didn’t find dog tags, they didn’t find bodies,” said Eshel. “[They found] pieces. You can understand what I’m saying. Pieces.”
Fifteen of the observation soldiers were killed, according to Israeli officials. Seven were taken hostage, as seen in footage released by the hostages’ families, handcuffed and bloodied. Five remain in Gaza to this day, according to Israeli officials. ABC News
The article notes that the soldiers in the observation center were unarmed, and when they called for help were told no one was available to help. Sounds like the IDF chain of command has some serious explaining to do.
Category: Israel
At least Biden didn’t say beforehand that a limited attack by Hamas would be okay.
Israel knows that everybody is trying to kill them. Nobody’s keeping this a secret. The way they analyze intelligence is completely different than the way we would do it, so I really don’t have a way to critique it, especially since I have no idea what they knew and didn’t know, just like everybody else.
In a spot of good news Hezbollah is running out of ammunition and resources. The way I know this is because they said today that they would stop attacks if Israel signed a ceasefire. This means that they know that their attacks are no longer effective and they are running out of resources, so they would like to stop now.
Wonder what would happen if Israel pulled a page from the Russian playbook, and seized a buffer zone of territory? Then told Lebanon, that if they wanted it back they had to take the Palestinians? Clearing Gaza out for good, and Israel occupying all of its territory to the Egyptian/Jordan border.
They didn’t return the hostages though did they.
Looks like they want a “husband.”
I typed hudna and put it in quotes! Eff Apple.
Ah, liberal nirvana: When seconds count, backup with any firearms at all is only hours away.
Doesn’t do a whole lot of good to shore up “The North Wall” with unarmed people…and then not listen to those people when they tell you “Hey, something’s up.” “No, that’s not a pending enemy attack, that’s a flight of our bombers coming in…ignore it.”
These kinds of stories have been circulating around since 7 October. One would think that the most heavily guarded border in the ME would be prepared for any attack. But then again, one would think that the supposed most secure building in this country would be able to know who left their Bolivian Marching Powder laying around too.
You can make book that we will see these kinds of attacks in our country between now and November.
Prepare
They know exactly who the nose candy belongs to. At first I thought it was for Hunter, now I am pretty sure it was to get Dad a full head of.steam by 10AM
It kinda goes with the illogical thought process that less than 2 percent of Israelis were allowed to own guns, and then it could only be a pistol with max of 50 rounds. Apparently they didn’t learn from WW2 as well as they should have about being armed and not being killed.
Intelligence failure? Where have I heard that before?
Before Pearl Harbor, The Battle of the Bulge, Tet Offensive, 9/11…
It is always easier to connect the dots in retrospect. Intelligence types see a vast sea of data, often contradictory. Looking BACK at it and selecting relevant clues is, as Mr. Hogan said, “dead easy.”
When I first read about the Oct 7 attack I wondered why it seemed so easy for the terrorists. Well, crazy as it seems, those Israelis living right next to the border were unarmed. All they could do was run and hide in their “safe rooms”, where they were slaughtered like sheep in a pen. I would say that Israel bears some of the responsibility for their own slaughter by making firearm possession illegal. Whatever happened to “never again”?
“For one, civilians can only apply for a pistol, and rifles are wholly off-limits. Furthermore, as a general rule, civilians can have no more than 50 bullets in their possession at any given time.”
https://www.algemeiner.com/2023/02/27/firearm-licensing-in-israel-how-strict-are-the-jewish-states-gun-laws/
This kind of thing is why you train every single one of your troops how to fight as infantry, and keep weapons close to hand. That place should have been set up like a fire base.