Hamas knew the IDF's weaknesses, say reserve officers at October 7 probe

The civilian committee probing the events leading up to October 7 heard testimony from witnesses Tuesday, including from IDF reserve officers.

The body leading the probe is made up of legal and security experts and was announced earlier this month by families of those killed on October 7, representatives from kibbutzim that were attacked, and civil society groups.

One of the primary goals of the committee is to instigate the foundation of a state probe, which has been shot down by Israel’s political echelon.

The Hamas terrorists “knew that the IDF knows how to handle a maximum of five points in parallel,” Democrats Party leader, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yair Golan told the committee Tuesday.

Golan's activities on October 7

Golan famously drove south on October 7, rescuing numerous Israelis from Hamas attacks and working with IDF forces in the area.

Hamas “understood that in the case of a widespread raid, they could create a numbers advantage and defeat IDF forces at every point when it is impossible to move forces from place to place.”

Golan touched on intelligence failures prior to October 7, saying that “there was confidence that we knew everything. It was comfortable to deceive ourselves.”

Israel created a thesis that the conflict can be managed, he said, adding that an expression heard among the political and military echelon is that “you don’t need to solve problems; you can manage them.”

Golan listed the main failures at the committee’s request. The first is that Israel’s entire defense system was visible to Hamas.

“We created the illusion that we had an almost hermetic defense. What did Hamas do? Learned and challenged us,” said Golan.

Golan said the second failure was the belief that the adversary was not serious and unable to handle what Israel saw as an impossible challenge.

Hamas learned the IDF’s methods and found a way to surmount every challenge, said Golan. The IDF has static observers, so Hamas threw a grenade straight into the observation point, which he offered as an example.

The third failure was that Hamas managed to neutralize the command and control system in the IDF from the division to the company level. They had precise information.

When asked by the committee if he thought threats by individuals to suspend their reserve service during the judicial overhaul hurt the Air Force’s capabilities, Golan said that they did not.

Amishav Ganot, a reserve officer in the Southern Command also addressed the committee.

“In all [military] exercises, the orders began with the words: ‘60 Nukhba terrorists have infiltrated. No one expected 3,000 terrorists.”

Ganot said he has been in his battalion for seven years, and participated in many exercises. “In spring of 2021, when we asked what the defense method would be, we were told ‘We’re working on it.’”

“At the end of 2018, terrorists were allowed to come to the fence as long as they were not armed. The meaning of this – from that moment there is no security perimeter.”

Granot laid out other events in the lead-up to October 7, saying that “a senior official in the region who is responsible for the security barrier told me at the end of March that, two weeks before the attack, terrorists came to the fence and blew up all the locks. In the past, they would have been shot. Now they are allowed to go to the fence.”

“That same authority alerted [officials] about it. They told him to ‘change the locks, everything is fine,’” he said.

Ganot also told the committee about his experience arriving for reserve duty on October 7, saying that technical difficulties made it hard to get the tanks out of emergency storage.

“The regular service soldiers did not share with us how [the tanks] were maintained,” he said.

“I don’t blame the emergency storage staff, they were four staff for 70 tanks.”

On October 14, the replacement parts needed to handle the storage problems ran out, said Ganot. “The spare part in question costs around 50 shekel,” he added.

Ganot said that he alerted his division to the storage problems two years ago.

Haim Yalin, former Eshkol Regional Council head and resident of Be’eri, touched on the 2012 decision to take guns out of the homes of residents and move them into an armory.

“If someone had made the decision that weapons are in homes in safes, the whole event would have changed,” he said.

“I’m not saying that 300 Nukhbas wouldn’t have come in. I’m just saying we wouldn’t have had [only] six weapons.”

The six weapons were accessible because they were in people’s homes, while additional weapons in the armory were not available to Be’eri residents because Hamas took over the area, Yalin added.

Tomer Nitzan, a resident of Netiv Ha’asara, told the committee that over the past few months, there were regular and increasing security events near his moshav, including people approaching the fence and shooting.