Major Yair Ansbacher ( by the way, a relative of Menachem Ansbacher, the famous commander of the Tel-a-Saki bunker in the Golan Heights during the Yom Kippur War, who became famous for his heroic actions) is the commander of the LOTAR special forces counter-terror unit based at the Adam base. In a series of interviews and articles about the battle that he and his unit had to fight this past Saturday (when Hamas launched its invasion), Major Ansbacher revealed several very troubling points.
Specifically, he revealed that Hamas had broken into one of the IDF’s secret intelligence bases in the south. Inside the base itself, the terrorists, while ignoring all other targets, clearly, quickly, and obviously in accordance with a preliminary plan, attacked a specific area inside the base (a grove at its rear), seeking to capture a very specific object, and, using a detailed map of this secret base!
Moving inside the secret base, they broke in through a steel door and entered a secret room inside that they clearly knew about in advance. The terrorists killed our soldiers inside the facility and tried to seize the secret equipment inside, but at that time they were surrounded by LOTAR fighters who arrived on the scene and succeeded in eliminating most of the terrorists during a tough battle.
One of the captured terrorists, during the investigation, when asked by Major Ansbacher about the purpose of the operation, replied, "Now you will release all our people [apparently referring to the fact that one of the main goals of Hamas terrorists was to capture as many hostages and captives as possible, to be exchanged for terrorists in Israeli prisons].
However, it is clear that those who sent these terrorists (Iranian supervisors?) had other and much more serious goals, including the seizure of secret documents and facilities of which they were well aware.
Details of how the terrorists behaved inside the secret base became known thanks to the analysis of GoPro camera footage mounted on the helmet of their boss. This information clearly shows that the operation was carefully planned, including the gathering of preliminary intelligence information, at the highest level, which, in my estimation, could only be provided by the intelligence services of a large state (Iran?).
Major Ansbacher also said that already on the way south, he and his men had to confront outposts set up by Hamas at literally every intersection! The fighters at these roadblocks were armed with RPGs and other heavy weapons. Their mission was to delay and damage IDF reinforcements coming and going into the area. This resulted in appalling delays for our forces, who could not quickly reach dozens of settlements and military bases under simultaneous attack by thousands of terrorists.
IDF investigations show that most of the military bases that were attacked were small. All of them were attacked by dozens of heavily armed terrorists who killed almost all of our soldiers (only a small fraction managed to escape in some cases). A total of 11 IDF bases were attacked simultaneously.
One of Hamas’ main targets was the Gaza Division headquarters, the “brain” that controls all IDF activity in the south. In the battles for this base, which was eventually almost completely destroyed, a huge number of Hamas fighters were killed and wounded. During these battles, many of our soldiers were wounded. The damage to the division headquarters, as well as 8 other operational headquarters in the south, which Hamas attacked, captured and burned, caused a monstrous chaos in the south, as all those responsible for fighting, calling for reinforcements, communicating with the air force, etc. were killed, wounded or countering attacks, and therefore the entire activity of our army in the south was essentially paralyzed.
In addition to hitting the “brain” (division headquarters and military units in the bases), Hamas tried even earlier to “blind” the IDF by hitting the entire observation system. The strike was carried out directly on the cameras using multiple drones ( it was reported 140), Zawari model attack drones (named after a Hamas engineer eliminated by Mossad in 2018) and snipers. In the past few days, it has come to light that several IDF observation balloons also collapsed weeks before the attack. Army top officials carelessly assumed this was a malfunction, failing to realize that it may well have been a deliberate action by Hamas. In any case, the Israel Defense Forces failed to replace the damaged balloons before the terrorist operation began, which also contributed to a dramatic reduction in the IDF’s surveillance capabilities.
The Hamas attack — and in my opinion, which I have been writing about since the beginning of events, this was all planned by someone much smarter and more powerful (Iran?) — the attack of “brain” and “eye” of our army in the south caused monstrous chaos in the IDF and caused severe delays in the entry and arrival of our troops, as well as terrible damage to the ability to manage and control them on the ground. The result of this was also a colossal weakening of the ability to defend civilian population centers in the south, which at this time were undergoing the bloodiest terrorist attack ever to hit Israel.