IDF publishes report into decision-making around October 7th

This is a transcript of what Nadar Eyal in the clip of the discussion above, posted by Israelilefty, said about Netanyahu’s reasons for refusing to allow a National State Commission of enquiry into Oct 7 ( roughly about 1:09 in).

‘0ne thing they [the intelligence division] did right. They came to the Prime Minuster. They sent him four letters, which is highly rare, during the summer, three months before the attack, saying Israel’s enemies see this as a historic opportunity to attack and we need to do something about it. And then, really seriously, this is the question the Prime Minister would be asked [if there were a National Commission]:
You received four letters warning that the enemies of Israel are preparing and we don’t know the time and the place

I published that the head of the Shin Bet, on a phone call, because Netanyahu wouldn’t meet him then, for a vote on the judicial overhaul, made a phone call to the PM - and this is a quote - This is a warning as to war. We will not know the time and the place. And he’s the head of Shin Bet. He’s not responsible for the Iranians. And the question that Netanyahu will be asked, and this is going to be the most important question:

We understand Mr Prime Minister that they didn’t warn you that Hamas was planning an attack. We also understand that they didn’t wake you up on Oct 6th in the middle of the night saying, “Hey what do you think Mr Prime Minister that we should do?” But you were given general warnings. Strategic warnings as to the intention to attack Israel. What did you do? Did you hold one discussion with the security chiefs as to these warnings? Did you ask for more information? Did you ask for the intelligence bureau to have more reports about these warnings? Did you have another phone call with them?

After several consecutive deep, dreadful warnings - that were also published in real time by Israeli press because the IDF was so worried they probably leaked to one of my colleagues Yossi Yehoshua who is military correspondent of Yedioth Ahronoth and some of it appeared with Amos too - so if you heard all of this, what did you do, Mr Prime Minister? Do you think that a Prime Minister of Israel who receives these kinds of warnings can do - nothing - with this?

And this question - that the Prime Minister is going to be asked, if there is going to be a National State Commission - is exactly the reason, right now, the position of Netanyahu and the Likud is that they don’t want a National State Commission’……..

’You can’t have a nation with a political administration that does not hold itself accountable, as though this is a third world…I don’t want to say a third world country - but something of the sort. You need to have this kind of standard.’

Thank you Israelilefty. That discussion lays out so many elements of the failures to interpret warnings of the imminent Oct 7 attack, including Netanyahu’s failure to react to four letters, very clearly.

Hopefully court will do the right thing because it stinks a lot of “Netanhayu not caring about Israelis and going above and beyond to keep his seat regardless of what he’s done”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/21/ronen-bar-shin-bet-intelligence-chief-fired-netanyahu-protests

@Scirocco

Thank you for posting. You show compassion to all.

October 7th and subsequent months have been dreadful for people in both Israel and Gaza.

"The catastrophic loss of about 1,200 lives when approximately 5,000 gunmen from Hamas and other Palestinian groups stormed into Israel, also taking 251 hostages in the process.
There are no dramatic revelations, but it is still sobering to see the military's conclusions about how it misjudged Hamas's intentions and underestimated its capabilities laid out in black and white."

This is SUCH a brilliant response. Thank you so much.
I’ve been criticised on here for being too “both sides” and sometimes the back and forth sniping can end up forcing people into more extreme and divided opinions.
I’ve also been guilty of the bickering at times but I totally agree that it’s completely unhelpful .
I mainly come on here to try to learn something and I have learnt a lot from you ( and scirocco)

Not from IDF but there is meant to be another report coming about what happened on 7oct

The TV report suggests that the annex, which it says amounts to an “astounding indictment” of Netanyahu, constitutes a “possible further reason” why the prime minister is firing Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar.
The document, which is entitled “The Path to October 7,” makes clear beyond all doubt that Netanyahu’s policy of buying calm in Gaza, by having Qatar send vast sums of money into the Hamas-run Strip, was maintained “despite multiple warnings issued by the Shin Bet to the prime minister [ahead of the Hamas invasion] that Israel was facing a disaster,” the TV report says.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/report-shin-bet-probe-tied-oct-7-directly-to-pms-policy-of-sending-qatari-money-to-gaza-may-be-another-reason-hes-firing-bar/

For anyone really interested in the content of the IDF investigation, this extended podcast episode with Amos Harel and Nadav Eyal is by far the most detailed I have come across in English, covering specific questions like how exactly the pieces were not put together on the early morning of 7 Oct and the worst failures at the Nachal Oz base. I’m usually not the biggest fan of Dan Senor but these two guests are level headed and really know what they’re talking about. It’s sobering listening.

Related

Israel’s Shin Bet says October 7 attack could have been prevented as it admits fault and casts blame

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/03/04/middleeast/israel-shin-bet-october-7-fault-intl-latam

Shin Bet also blamed policies enacted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as contributing factors, setting off a political firestorm.
Among the factors that contributed to Hamas’ decision to launch the attack, the report summary said, were Israeli politicians’ visits to the Al Aqsa compound in Jerusalem, “the treatment of prisoners, and the perception that Israeli society has been weakened due to the damage to social cohesion.”

'Predetermined, Political Conclusions' |
Netanyahu Rejects Demands for Oct. 7 State Inquiry in Fiery Knesset Speech

Yarden Bibas, in a letter to Netanyahu read by a lawmaker, accused the prime minister of shirking responsibility for October 7. Before the session, Knesset guards forcibly blocked bereaved families from entering, dragging a hostage's father across the floor.

www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-03-03/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-rejects-demands-for-oct-7-state-inquiry-in-fiery-knesset-speech/00000195-5ccd-dcab-a9b7-deff48e40000

Not only the intelligent, diligent, female spotters’ warnings about imminent attack from Hamas were ignored.

This is an interesting Haaretz report November 24th 2023 about another ignored Israeli woman, this time a senior intelligence officer.

Over a Year Before October 7, Israel's Army Had Insight Into Hamas' Plan to Attack Israeli Towns, IDF Bases
The group began preparing its onslaught from Gaza years ago, but Israel's analysis remained faulty. Two months before the assault, an NCO warned that the nightmare scenario could now happen, but she was ignored

Excerpt:

Some of the difficulties stemmed from a decision at Unit 8200, the Israeli army's equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency, to reduce coverage of the enemy’s tactical communications. Israel apparently chose to rely on more advanced technology and mistakenly believed that it had a full picture of the enemy’s intentions and capabilities.

There was one righteous person in this story, an experienced, professional noncommissioned officer in Unit 8200 specializing in the enemy’s military doctrine. Her warnings jibe with the many warnings that the women spotters in the Gaza Division raised.

Over a period of months before the war, she wrote three documents warning her superiors about Hamas' intentions. A few months ago, she reported that Hamas in Gaza had completed exercises simulating an invasion of kibbutzim and border-fence posts.

In July, she reported that the group had completed even more exercises. In one document she added a horrifying statement revealing Hamas' intention to severely harm residents of the kibbutzim.

She concluded that Hamas had completed its preparations; part of her evidence was a visit by senior Hamas officials to watch the exercises – an event that the spotters also reported. Like them, she was ignored, even if she wasn't degraded or threatened as the spotters were by some of their commanders.

The NCO’s warning was passed on to senior officers in her unit and to field intelligence. A senior intelligence officer responded to her by email; he praised her work but added: “It seems imaginary to me.”

*The NCO stood her ground. It’s not imaginary, she responded. It wasn’t for show but an example of what Hamas could do. According to her, Hamas' level of detail and scenarios it practiced showed this.^

An older NCO, her commander, sided with her. He wrote that he had 30 years of experience and concluded that the exercise was for real, not for show. She added: We're marking 50 years since the Yom Kippur War. You can’t say it’s imaginary.

The NCO’s last warning arrived in August in a document distributed to a number of senior staffers in the unit and field intelligence. She felt that this was the right group to receive this information. She detailed the plan as she understood it and the exercises that Hamas had held.

Her conclusions closely conform to events less than two months later. She warned that starting then, the negative scenario could happen.

A third veteran NCO joined her in her warnings. Weeks before October 7, a senior officer visited the southern base where the intelligence had been collected and the warnings were drawn up.

He was shown the intelligence, but it seems the top officers at the unit and at Military Intelligence didn't give the statements sufficient weight. The veteran but lower-level professional got the impression that the senior command wasn’t taking the warnings seriously.

archive.ph/2024.06.18-052350/www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-24/ty-article-magazine/.premium/over-a-year-before-october-7-israels-army-had-insight-into-hamas-attack-plan/0000018c-02a2-de3d-af9e-0bf7901b0000

This is a report from Haaretz 17 July 2024 about a meeting Netanyahu had just had with the families of the young IDF spotter girls who had been observers at the army base at Nahal Oz, had been reporting on Hamas readying for attack, but who were ignored, and also left without weapons or protection.

Netanyahu said to the families that he was surprised to hear they were unarmed, as if he never knew. Can you imagine?

'That Amazes Me, I Didn't Know': Netanyahu 'Surprised' to Hear What Happened at Israeli Army Base on October 7
(Without links)

Recordings aired on Channel 12 News on Tuesday evening show how little Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows about what happened at the Nahal Oz base during the October 7 Hamas assault and about the failures that enabled it to happen.

Netanyahu met on Tuesday with relatives of the female IDF spotters who were killed at the base, and the recordings document portions of the three-hour meeting, during which the families called on the prime minister to hasten the establishment of a national commission of inquiry.

The meeting began with some harsh exchanges.

Netanyahu: "Good morning."
A participant: "For us, it's not a good morning."
Netanyahu: "We are from the same family."
Participant: "Too bad it doesn't feel like that."
Netanyahu: "I feel like that."
Participant: "I don't."

At the meeting, the parents told Netanyahu about how their daughters had warned repeatedly of a Hamas invasion. The mother of one of the soldiers said that her daughter, who had just finished her training and had only served at the Nahal Oz base for a week, predicted what was about to happen.

"She came home to us and said: There's going to be an invasion," the mother said. "When did she tell you that?" Netanyahu asked, and the mother replied: "During the time she was there. She said it several times, in fact."

Another woman at the meeting said, "For a month, they were telling us every day: 'It's trouble, they [Hamas] keep training.'" The prime minister asked her: "They told you that?" And another participant answered: "They told us, and we demand answers about this, immediately, not when the war ends."

Bachar
"All of this information, I'm stunned by what I'm hearing. I didn't know they told you these things," the prime minister said. "All of this material was supposed to have reached someplace that operates the systems, and it didn't happen." Netanyahu claimed to have discovered this information in a conversation with his son Avner

"The amazing things that I discovered, it was because my son was in combat intelligence – He says to me: 'Dad, this golden material, this pure gold from the spotters … I don't know if it's accurate, but you have to check it out. It's not going into a database.'" To which one of the participants reacted: "Then what are the girls doing there? What did you do when he told you that?" And Netanyahu replied: "We're dealing with it now, it didn't happen beforehand."

One person at the meeting said, "Our lives have been turned upside down. The only thing we ask is first of all for the truth to come to light. I want to see a national commission of inquiry. We all do."

Another person asked: "Can you give us your word that a national inquiry commission will be established, and not 20 years from now?"

Another woman at the meeting added: "It won't hinder the war. We are Likudniks who voted for you – Bibists. Two Bibists are sitting here in front of you."

Then someone at the meeting reminded the prime minister of his responsibility for the massacre. "You're the head. You are responsible. You command the army. You command the defense minister. The responsibility is on you. Accept responsibility."

Netanyahu answered: "At this time, I say to you: All the possible examinations need to be done, but to get into a situation now in which all these commanders and officers will take lawyers? We're in a war of survival."

The sister of one of the spotters who was killed said: "Everybody here talked about punishment. Do you know what punishment the girls received if they ever took their eyes off the screen? They got 28 days in military prison. What is the punishment for looking away that cost the lives of 1,400 slaughtered, and caused us all here to lose the most precious thing to us in the world? I want to know what punishment they will receive. Because if my sister turned her eyes away for a moment, she would have gone to jail. What punishment will all those who looked away for so many years receive?"

Netanyahu told the soldiers' families that he only found out right now that they were posted on the Gaza border without being armed: "I just asked Roman [Roman Gofman – the prime minister's military secretary]: 'Were there weapons? No weapons?,' now, just an hour and a half ago, and he said, 'No.' I said: 'How can that be?'" One of the participants responded: "You mean to tell me that you didn't know they weren't armed? That's a big problem in itself."

The families went on to tell Netanyahu about how hurt they are because the government has ignored them. "I've been sitting at home for nine months," said one person there. "No one has come to us – no one for the government, or from the Knesset. Nobody has come to ask forgiveness, to say, 'We're thinking of you, we're aware of your existence.'"

Another person added: "Not one person can come see us at home? For nine months, not one person can come and knock on the door and say: 'We erred, we're sorry'? Where's the respect? My daughter isn't on a par with Eizenkot's child? Can someone explain this?"

A further article that was originally linked is this one:
The Women Soldiers Who Warned of a Pending Hamas Attack – and Were Ignored
archive.ph/2025.01.19-230234/www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-20/ty-article-magazine/.premium/the-women-soldiers-who-warned-of-a-pending-hamas-attack-and-were-ignored/0000018b-ed76-d4f0-affb-eff740150000

Thank you for your points @israelilefty

It is such a delicate subject.

Yes, it's well known that the Air Force was not prepared for Oct 7. I don't think that it's implied that they used the heavier bombs inside Israel - rather the opposite - that the Air Force was reluctant to act where civilians might be in danger and most of the fighting from the air against Hamas terrorists inside Israel was done by helicopters which have much smaller guns capable of precision (during the Lebanon war we saw them around here a lot shooting down Hezbollah drones). And yes, I know that numerous casualties were inside vehicles; or vehicles were abandoned as people were injured and ran :(

Unfortunately there was evidence of people having been in the cars.

It must have all been extremely chaotic and terrifying.

https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/article-774511

The quote about bombs being heavy for domestic situation came from the Israeli services.

»On October 7, much of the Air Force was carrying heavier bombs which could be used to destroy much more powerful damage to an enemy, but which were too large to use in complex situations with Hamas invaders and Israeli civilians in close proximity to each other. »

https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-844008

I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make.

I'm not aware of heavy bombs being used on Israeli houses on Oct 7 (or indeed anywhere in Israel). A lot of the damage to Israeli homes on Oct 7 came from Hamas burning homes in order to force the residents out, and from the firefights which took place between troops and Hamas militants in the kibbutzim. We don't see bomb damage on the Israeli side of the border.

About the burned vehicles: a lot of these came from the Nova festival site where hundreds of cars were parked by festivalgoers - most of the destroyed cars were probably not being driven at the time. Regarding the fire damage: remember that Hamas didn't just use guns - they had also rockets, RPGs, grenades etc and were actively trying to attack people escaping in vehicles; damage might also have happened in the firefights. It seems highly unlikely that the Air Force was a major contributor to the damage given that they didn't even know the festival was a major site of casualties until many hours later.

Again, I don't see compelling evidence that an unusually significant number of casualties on the Israeli side were "collateral damage" by Israeli forces. Israeli forces in the area were vastly outnumbered on Oct 7 by Hamas militants right from the beginning of the attacks, and in many of the major sites of casualties the army didn't even arrive until much of the carnage had already happened and hostages had already been taken, as they got bogged down fighting on the way.

@israelilefty
I can see that Israelis need to be able to live safely within their borders -wherever they are. I am not saying that the sole purpose of the war was an act of revenge, but - like yourself - have seen, read and heard enough to see that there has been element of this.

As such, it may be that the method of the attack on Gaza was due to what happened on 7/10.

There are things that don’t make sense. For example - the number of burned vehicles - estimated at 1500. It has been reported that Hamas did this- but how could they have with guns? These are Israeli vehicles.

The extent of the damages on houses. The IDF have said they used heavy bombs that weren’t appropriate for the complex situation.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=VVpTaW4T524

From a quick google for statistics, 74,600 Israelis were evacuated from their homes in the south and 68,500 in the north - these are just those living right on the borders who were officially evacuated. They were housed in hotels until at least 7 July 2024 - whole kibbutzim were literally rehoused in whole hotels, several at the Dead Sea. Northern residents are just going back now - last week my son's kindergarten class said goodbye to a girl whose family was evacuated from the north to our town. A lot of the kibbutzim on the Gaza border that were severely wrecked on Oct 7 are still in temporary locations, living in caravans until more permanent building will take place. I think that most if not all of the kibbutzim voted to eventually return to their original location (they are collectives so decide as a group), but obviously that will be a difficult decision for some members.

That's interesting @israelilefty . It does make sense that people wouldn't want to risk living near the Gaza border following the atrocities, but I hadn't actually heard that reported before.

(In contrast, there has been reporting on the 60,000 Israelis evacuated from their homes in Northern Israel due to daily rocket attacks from Hezbollah, and that the goal to move those citizens back motivated Israel's incursion into Lebanon)

How much was Southern Israel emptied out and for how long, do you know?

I just wanted also to address another part of Polka83's post: "it has frequently been noted that amongst the atrocities committed by Hamas, one of them was the death of 1200 Israelis. I will leave aside the possible insinuation, which I've seen from some people who want to minimise Hamas's actions, that a significant number of those deaths were collateral damage by Israel. As I've partially explained above, as one would expect in such a complex situation, there were collateral deaths but I haven't heard any serious analysis suggesting that these were an unusually significant proportion of the total.

What is implied here, though, is that the justification for the war was the number killed on Oct 7. While the desire for revenge has certainly been present in public discourse about the war, and has probably influenced ways in which the was was conducted, the primary justification of the war was to destroy the military capabilities of Hamas; in other words, to ensure that such an attack cannot take place again. We should remember in relating to this goal that in addition to their murderous rampage, Hamas took control of communities in southern Israel (within Israel's internationally agreed 1948 borders), and effectively rendered a swathe of southern Israel unliveable, because nobody would agree to go back to live there while an enemy who had shown itself to have the intent and capability to launch a wide scale attack on civilian communities, and who has built enormous infrastructure in order to do so, would still be armed and in power the other side of the fence. Together with the return of the hostages, this was the primary goal of the war, and remains the sticking point in the ceasefire negotiations, because Israel is unwilling to have Hamas remain in power the other side of the border.

You asked specifically about the Hannibal directive, not about collateral deaths. 14 is the number of civilian deaths on Oct 7 in that specific circumstance: when the army fired on a building/vehicle knowing that this might endanger hostages. There are also cases of other friendly fire incidents, for example, of mistaken identification, for example where civilian defenders were mistaken as terrorists. In general, the army and media are open about reporting and discussing friendly fire deaths.

@Polka83

Re: the Hannibal Directive employed by the IDF Oct 7,

the Haaretz article July 7 2024 with the title below can be read if you copy its link into archive ph and it is about this.

IDF ordered Hannibal Directive on October 7 to Prevent Hamas Taking Soldiers Captive

Thank you for answering - the report does make reference to it from what I read, although not in detail. That is why I brought it up.

14 deaths collateral deaths - is that what is reported in Israeli media?

Since this was addressed to me: I'm happy to answer questions with the caveat that I am not a military or a political expert. I'll also add that I have a long-running if recently less active AMA you can use for that to avoid derailing other threads. I don't check it every day but I do try to answer everything. This is the link to the AMA.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/AMA/4967191-im-a-jewish-israeli-ama

About the Hannibal directive: Yes, this is something discussed in the Israeli media. For those unfamiliar with the term, this is a command that was active for some years in the Israeli military intended to prevent soldiers from falling into enemy hands, which allowed forces to use a string of measures from roadblocks and creating obstacles, to using "all means" including firing in a way that potentially endangered the abducted soldier's life, in order to prevent their capture. While this directive was revoked in 2016, it was invoked in a handful of circumstances on Oct 7.

I know that at least at the beginning of the war, some commentators tried to use the existence of this directive to suggest that a significant proportion of the Israeli casualties on Oct 7 were from Israeli fire. This proposition does not appear to hold weight. 14 civilians are known to have died in this kind of circumstance on Oct 7 (out of over 800). 13 of them were in one incident, "Pessi's House" in kibbutz Be'eri, where a tank fired shells then troops entered a house in which 15 hostages were being held by some 40 militants, after an extremely long standoff. Only one hostage survived the ensuing firefight (one had already been killed before the incident). This event has been discussed in great detail in both the IDF investigation and journalistic investigations. The other incident was when a helicopter fired on a vehicle carrying Hamas militants and hostages, killing hostage Efrat Katz but freeing other hostages. I couldn't find numbers available for soldiers killed in friendly fire incidents on Oct 7 itself (as opposed to in the following war, where these incidents are reported clearly) but I doubt that the Hannibal command/approach caused a very high number of deaths among security forces, because there would be reported incidents at least through journalism if not through official channels.

So in order to answer your question: yes there is the will to look at it, but this has not been the focus of discussions about the failure of Oct 7 (other than very extensive discussions of the Pessi's house incident) probably because there are other much more urgent failings on Oct 7 and there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence that this command greatly impacted Israeli casualties. I also wanted to footnote that while the Hannibal directive is shocking, it does need to be understood in the context of the hugely high prices Israel paid to redeem captured soldiers, including freeing over 1000 Palestinian prisoners to free just one Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, in 2011. Of those freed prisoners were many who went on to cause a lot of Israeli casualties, including Yahya Sinwar who masterminded the Oct 7 attacks. This is not an attempt to justify the doctrine but just to say that it needs to be understood in context.

@israelilefty
Your post about this board was very appropriate. About how those who are not directly affected appear to see this as an either or situation. Given this, I am hoping you will take this question in good faith.

There is clearly a lot for Israelis to reflect within this report. However, as someone from the outside- which I acknowledge I am, it has frequently been noted that amongst the atrocities committed by Hamas, one of them was the death of 1200 Israelis. This is used as a justification for the action against Hamas in Gaza, resulting in the devastation there.

My question is- is there the emotional and political will to look at the impact of the Hannibal Directive in the friendly fire deaths of Israelis by the IDF?