David Katz from Israel's cyber crime unit which is involved in the investigation, told journalists that it was too early to prove that sexual violence was planned as part of the attack, but that data extracted from the phones of the Hamas attackers suggested that "everything was systematic"
I wonder if Israel also knew of this, since they knew a year prior, but did not think it was possible.
The approximately 40-page document, which the Israeli authorities code-named “Jericho Wall,” outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people.
Hamas followed the blueprint with shocking precision. 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.
Then, in July, just three months before the attacks, a veteran analyst with Unit 8200, Israel’s signals intelligence agency, warned that Hamas had conducted an intense, daylong training exercise that appeared similar to what was outlined in the blueprint.
Officials privately concede that, had the military taken these warnings seriously and redirected significant reinforcements to the south, where Hamas attacked, Israel could have blunted the attacks or possibly even prevented them.
Underpinning all these failures was a single, fatally inaccurate belief that Hamas lacked the capability to attack and would not dare to do so. That belief was so ingrained in the Israeli government, officials said, that they disregarded growing evidence to the contrary.
The failures to connect the dots echoed another analytical failure more than two decades ago, when the American authorities also had multiple indications that the terrorist group Al Qaeda was preparing an assault. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were largely a failure of analysis and imagination, a government commission concluded.
Bibi and the IDF screwed the pooch massively on this and heads need to roll, if only for "healing" when all is said and done (and Gaza is a smoldering crater and an example of ethnic cleansing that The West sort of cared about).
But what I will say is this: You get reports like this CONSTANTLY. For any terrorist or military attack, there will be at least ten instances of "This analyst said this was coming and nobody listened". In part because you fundamentally cannot respond to every possible threat... without preemptively attacking and wiping out an entire city/country/continent. But also? Plans change. Deliveries come late, equipment has malfunctions, etc. Sometimes that means you delay and sometimes that means you lead an airborne assault that involves waving down trucks to escape in because your helicopters all shit the bed.
We saw similar with COVID. Everyone loses their minds when they see that an author or a TV show "predicted COVID". Sometimes they even get the year right (ignoring that 2020 is a popular year for other reasons). A lot of that has to do with an understanding of how fragile the world's medical systems actually are. And it is that we have had pandemics before. And what is conveniently ignored are all the cases where it was supposed to happen in 2010 or 2030 or whatever. The answer isn't "Wow, so and so must be clairvoyant!". It is "Hey, this is a known danger that we might be running into again just a few years later. Maybe we should try preventative actions to reduce the overall impact?"
Except Israel had the fucking blueprint in their hands. That would seem to count a lot more when the analyst confirmed training had begun for the mission.
The approximately 40-page document, which the Israeli authorities code-named “Jericho Wall,” outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people.