October War II: Israeli intelligence will face reckoning after shock Hamas attack

LONDON – Fifty years almost to the day since Israel came under a surprise attack from Egypt and Syria, the Jewish state is yet again embroiled in a new and unexpected war.

Just as in the October War of 1973, Israel’s famed intelligence services did not see what was coming.

And just as the fighting 50 years ago reshaped Israel and its region, the current pitched battles against fighters of Hamas,

the extremist Palestinian organisation that infiltrated Israel

in the early hours of Saturday, are destined to change the strategic map of the Middle East.

Casualties among Israeli civilians are guaranteed to be very heavy, perhaps the most serious since Israel’s war of independence in 1948. And a bigger Middle Eastern confrontation is now in the offing. The omens can hardly be grimmer.

Since Israel’s founding, the guiding principle of its defence strategy has been that, because the country is relatively small and most of its population live in a narrow strip on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, everything must be done to keep wars away from Israeli towns and villages.

The strategy was remarkably successful. Even in 1973 – the first time Arab forces succeeded in pushing back the Israeli military – Israel’s civilian population remained untouched by warfare.

Hamas in Gaza on Israel’s southern frontiers and the Hizbollah militias in Lebanon near Israel’s northern borders have spent the past two decades extending their missile and drone capabilities to hit deep inside Israel precisely because they knew that Israel’s weakest point was its civilian population.

Until now, this effort had also failed; literally tens of thousands of missiles and projectiles were fired at Israel’s cities, but a web of sophisticated defences – including the various Iron Dome systems – ensured that only a tiny number of Israeli civilians perished in such attacks.

So, although in a country where all young men and women are expected to do national service and every family is affected by war, Israel’s urban centres remained eerily calm and safe even in the worst security crises.

All this changed this weekend as carnage came to Israel’s streets. Hamas fighters penetrated no less than 14 Israeli settlements on Saturday, and for many hours roamed the streets largely unhindered, shooting people indiscriminately.

Israeli social media is full of phone recordings of civilians desperately begging the military for rescue and video clips of civilians running for their lives.

The operation to repel the Hamas fighters is far from over, and it may be days before they are all identified. Israeli military units will also have to deal with hostage situations where the use of overwhelming force against Hamas – the favourite Israeli tactic – makes no sense.

It is impossible to overestimate the impact of this experience on the Israeli psyche and morale. For the first time, their country no longer looks invincible.

And the shock will be even more significant when the total tally of casualties becomes known.

There is also the problem of the captured Israelis now under Hamas control and probably hidden in tunnels in Gaza.

Israel prides itself on sparing no effort to rescue its captured soldiers and civilians – it even traded Palestinian prisoners in return for the remains of an Israeli soldier killed.

But the sheer number of Israelis now captured by Hamas – reputed to run into many scores and including some senior Israeli military officers – means that the haggling over their fate could go on for years.

Israelis are skilled at uniting when faced with a crisis. However, the moment the guns fall silent, an almighty political row will develop over how the country’s intelligence agencies overlooked the preparations for this war.

Heavy bulldozers operated by Hamas were pre-positioned to punch through the high fence separating Gaza from Israel, and hundreds of Hamas fighters were trained for months for this operation. Yet most Israeli troops remained deployed elsewhere rather than near Gaza.

It is highly likely that, after restoring control over Israel’s cities, the country’s military will launch a ground offensive in Gaza, seeking to eliminate the Hamas leadership.

And all eyes will be on Hizbollah in the north. If the Iranian-backed Palestinian organisation also moves against Israel, the Middle East will be consumed in an all-out war.

Either way, it is difficult to see how Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s already embattled Prime Minister, will survive this debacle.

Current and future generations of Israeli civilians will have to get used to the idea that they can no longer be shielded from death and destruction.