I think that this whole terrible action, which Hamas prepared and carried out under the nose of our army and its intelligence, was fully prepared by Iranian specialists. It involved several stages.
First, a chain of distracting maneuvers that put the alertness of the army commanders to sleep. In recent weeks, there have been many small, repeated provocations close to the security fence around the sector that did not end in a breakthrough attempt. It is possible that they were even used to plant explosive devices along the fence that blew up the barriers at the proper moment. In any case, the soldiers guarding the fence, who are forbidden (thanks to the military prosecutor’s office, which destroys the activities of our army) to open fire on suspicious persons approaching the fence without permission from the high army command, and who have no right to stop the outrage, were forced to simply watch the provocations and seem to have stopped reacting to them properly.
Second, the massive exercises that were regularly conducted by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists. These involved moving hundreds of terrorists in fast vehicles over rough terrain and practicing storming Israeli fortifications after overcoming obstacles and breaching barriers. Of course, the IDF followed these exercises closely, but it seems that the army specialists did not pay much attention to them, remaining captive to their own “concept”, which they lobbied the political leadership of the country with fervor, saying that Hamas “would not dare” and “would not benefit” from them. Actually, exactly the same “army specialists” convinced us in their time that the terrorists of the Palestine Liberation Organization (from Jews), whom we let into Judea, Samaria and Gaza, providing them with weapons in accordance with the Oslo agreement, would allegedly provide us with peace and prosperity, and that our subsequent escape from the Gaza Strip within the framework of “Disengagement” would turn the Strip into a “Middle Eastern Singapore”. And, of course, in the same way, we were assured that Syria and Egypt would not start a war in the fall of 1973....
But if Hamas dares," the “experts” said, "our air force will come and blow them to pieces... Hamas dared. And the air force never came. This happened for two reasons, which appear to be the next part of the elaborate Iranian plan.
The first of these reasons is to neutralize the entire surveillance system. I think it has been long and well known in Iran that a key part of the Israeli army’s defense system is surveillance, which provides us with intelligence and allows air and ground defense systems to function.
According to the data already published, Hamas snipers shot and destroyed cameras (as evidenced by the female observers who operated them) and other surveillance systems, and the automatic “see-and-shoot” systems were attacked by drone strikes that dropped bombs on them.
It is possible that electronic warfare tools were also used, which managed to disable the surveillance and defense systems. This issue must necessarily be thoroughly investigated.
In the next stage, after neutralizing most of the surveillance systems, Hamas terrorist groups moved swiftly and easily broke through the barriers (possibly with charges already planted there) and then attacked IDF posts, including at the Erez checkpoint, where there were very few of our fighters due to the holiday.
As Hamas videos of the breakthrough through our outposts show, a large portion of the soldiers were unarmed and not even in uniform, in other words, not even on minimum alert. The few soldiers who were on alert were unable to effectively confront the dozens of well-trained and armed terrorists with RPGs and grenades who suddenly attacked them!
The second reason, however, was that one of the first targets attacked was the Gaza Division headquarters. The fact that the headquarters was attacked shows not only the high level of training of the militant units, but also a well thought out strategy. This headquarters houses armored vehicles, weapons depots, many soldiers, etc. The fact that the terrorists dared to attack it, in my opinion, indicates that the Iranian special forces sought first and foremost to neutralize the “brain” of the army, which controls all military activity in the south and is concentrated in the headquarters of the Gaza Division.
Once this headquarters was captured (I’m sure an investigation will show that the terrorists lost many fighters in the course of storming it), the entire IDF defense system in the south was undermined. Because all of the IAF Directorate’s activities are also conducted from this headquarters — through various strike complexes and battle cells with special communications and special systems linking air force bases, helicopter squadrons, drone squadrons, etc., as well as various sources of fire — artillery, Tammuz rockets, tanks, etc. By the way, all of this seems to have now become the property of Iranian special forces.... Once the brain was neutralized all IDF activity was paralyzed.
This is why Hamas, I believe under the direction of Iranian specialists, used immense power to take over the division headquarters (even paying a heavy price for it). And it is this circumstance that appears to have been largely responsible for much of the chaos that reigned yesterday. I’m afraid it still affects the possibility of our army’s actions, since most of the experienced soldiers and commanders who were there were killed, wounded or taken prisoner...
Intelligence information available to Hamas indicates careful planning and detailed preparations for the operation. Knesset Member Almog Cohen of the Otzma Yehudit party, who has now volunteered for reserve service, reported that he and his comrades took an aerial photograph of the city of Ofakim from the vest of one of the terrorists they killed, detailing the location of synagogues, celebration halls and other community centers.
Such high-quality preparation, in my opinion, is no doubt the result of Iranian leadership of the operation.
We are talking about a coordinated and simultaneous attack in dozens of directions. Fences were breached in 27 places. At the same time, the ground attack was accompanied by an aerial attack using attack drones and penetration by motorized hang gliders and an attack from the sea. This level of preparation, in my opinion, could only have been achieved through Iranian planning, or at least a large-scale presence of Iranian advisors in the entourage of Hamas ringleaders.
Their advice included: identifying weaknesses in the IDF’s defense system, coordinating the collection and processing of the necessary intelligence information, selecting the direction of the main attack on the Gaza Division headquarters, etc., advice on organizing exercises, advice on drawing up a diversionary plan, training in camouflage, preparing for the attack, training in secrecy (communications security, codes, sectionalization) in order to maintain the confidentiality of the operation.
The conclusion from all of the above is clear — it is the Iranian regime that is the planner (or at least the chief advisor), while Hamas is merely the executor.
Iran, by the way, is also a financial resource for Hamas, encouraging it to carry out terrorist attacks. And here it is hard not to recall the 6 billion dollars transferred by the Biden administration to the Iranian regime just last week, as well as the fact that the refusal of the Biden administration to monitor compliance with international sanctions imposed on Iran has actually filled the regime’s budget, which was almost emptied thanks to strict control under Trump.
One way or another, the Iranian regime is the head of a poisonous snake. And only by striking it down can we defeat our enemies definitively.