ed note–we’ll forego the usual extended commentary in favor of something ‘short- & sweet’, ladies and Gentile-men–
Israel Knew…Israel helped facilitate it…Israel helped it along, Israel milked it for everything it was worth, and is still doing so today.
Times of Israel
An assessment from a senior Israeli intelligence officer in August 2023 warning that Hamas was readying for a large-scale attack was suppressed and not passed on to senior military brass in the months prior to the Palestinian terror group’s brutal October 7, 2023, massacre, according to a Saturday evening report.
According to Channel 12, a senior Israel Defense Forces official named only by his first initial as ‘Maj. Nun’ wrote the assessment that there had been a change in the feasibility of war with Hamas, based on dire warnings from two counterintelligence officers from the military’s 8200 signals intelligence unit, as he was leaving his role in August last year.
The report said that in the presentation, Nun had warned that while intelligence indicated that Hamas was preparing for a very broad operation, the IDF was readying only for a scenario of up to four simultaneous incursions from the Gaza Strip.
He wrote that the raw intelligence indicated that ‘several basic assumptions’ should be challenged, according to the report, and suggested resuming monitoring Hamas’s elite Nukhba force.
It was the Nukhba force that led thousands of Palestinian terrorists across the border into Israel on October 7, 2023.
Unit 8200, one of the IDF units pointed to as playing a role in the failure to prevent October 7, reportedly stopped listening in to the handheld radios of Hamas operatives in Gaza around a year before the onslaught because it was seen as a ‘wasted effort.’
Nun was reportedly the officer responsible for presenting a document obtained by Unit 8200 in April 2022 setting out Hamas’s plans for what proved to be the October 7 invasion and slaughter in southern Israel.
The existence of the document, which Israeli military intelligence codenamed ‘Jericho Walls,’ was first reported by the Kan broadcaster and detailed by The New York Times in November 2023.
As reported by Hebrew media last year, it was not seen by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi before the October 7 attack. It was also not seen by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then-defense minister Yoav Gallant, or the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
According to the timeline laid out by Channel 12 on Saturday, the IDF chief was briefed on Hamas’s military training drills in September 2023, but Nun’s warnings were left out of the presentation.
Instead, the warnings were assessed by the senior official’s commanding officer, named in the report as ‘Lt. Gen. Alef,’ as warning of a ‘pompous and unrealistic scenario.’ He ordered Nun’s successor to create a new document on Hamas training preparations to present to Halevi that did not mention the ‘Jericho Walls’ plan.
According to the reports, the 40-page ‘Jericho Walls’ plan laid out almost exactly how Hamas eventually wound up carrying out the attack.
The Times wrote: ‘The document called for a barrage of rockets at the outset of the attack, drones to knock out the security cameras and automated machine guns along the border, and gunmen to pour into Israel en masse in paragliders, on motorcycles and on foot — all of which happened on Oct. 7.’
Israeli intelligence officers who did see the plan reportedly determined that the terror group was incapable of carrying out an assault of such a large scope — or possibly unwilling — and dismissed concerns about it.
Saturday night’s report was the latest in a long series of revelations that began emerging soon after October 7 about intelligence material in Israel’s hands pointing to the looming Hamas invasion that was ignored, dismissed, or misinterpreted. The TV channel said its report was compiled under military censorship limitations.
Last month, the IDF chief instructed the military to ‘accelerate the timetables’ for the conclusion of its investigations into the October 7 onslaught, to meet a January 31 deadline set by Defense Minister Israel Katz.
The government has refused to appoint a state commission of inquiry and has opposed any probes that could include looking at political failures surrounding the devastating surprise attack, its lead-up, and its aftermath.
The attack sparked the ongoing war in Gaza, which has also seen fighting on several other fronts as well against Iran — which backs Hamas — and its various other proxy groups in the region.