IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and the Head of Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, commented on the heavy failure in preventing the October 7th massacre and the way they dealt with the murderous attack. For the first time, Channel 12 News on Sunday aired a recording of the two in a meeting with local authority heads in the south, during which they admitted to a lack of warnings, a failure to understand the situation on the ground, and the mistaken perception that led to complacency. "We failed to provide protection for the citizens of Israel on Simchat Torah. We expected something entirely different from ourselves. If I had seen that video beforehand, I wouldn’t have thought such a thing could happen. We see the numbers—if we had believed it was possible, we would have acted differently," said the Chief of Staff. He explained that the IDF viewed Hamas as a limited military force and did not anticipate a broad surprise attack as a plausible scenario. Even if such a scenario had been considered, the assumption was that intelligence warnings would be received in advance. "We operated under the perception that we could create a defensive response based on intelligence, a barrier, and defensive forces. Theoretically, it’s correct—but in practice, it collapsed," said Halevi. "When we prioritized the borders, Gaza was the last to be addressed. We thought our situation there was good—that we had a high-quality underground barrier, an advanced intelligence-gathering system, and topography that made it difficult for the enemy. Instead, we placed the emphasis on the north against Hezbollah. We didn’t think that barrier would allow a broad attack," he added. Maj. Gen. Finkelman recounted, "On that dark Shabbat, the intelligence simply didn’t exist. The Nukhba planned to capture Tel Nof and Hatzerim." Related articles: The abductee who tried to flee as terrorists took him to Gaza Outrage at disclosure of Nova report: 'Where were you? Asleep?' 'Sometimes I have to convince myself that it really happened' Defense of Erez Crossing severely failed The Chief of Staff added, "Intelligence in this war contributed to the great failure. We would have wanted to receive an advance warning—it could have changed reality. But we didn’t get it. For example, cell phone SIM cards activating on Friday evening—a phenomenon that occurred 10-12 times a year and therefore wasn’t seen as unusual. Or the movement of senior Hamas officials—which also had alternative explanations. In the end, when we tried to examine the signs, we saw routine—and we were wrong." "Ultimately, when you look at what we knew that night versus what we could have known—the gap is enormous. If there had been one person seeing all this information in real-time, it would have looked different," stated Halevi.
