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Did Hamas’ Innovation — or Israel’s Complacency — Lead to October 7 Massacre?

Hamas terrorists kidnapping Israeli women at the Nahal Oz base near the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: Screenshot

Israel possesses one of the world’s most sophisticated intelligence capabilities with which to obtain and provide information on its adversaries’ capabilities, intentions and actions. That intelligence serves to guide Israel’s policymakers in deciding on courses of action. Yet on October 7, Hamas was able to carry out an unprecedented attack on Israeli soil with devastating consequences.

What core intelligence challenges did Israel fail to meet in the run-up to this event?

Critically, Israeli intelligence failed to grasp the disruptive changes in Hamas’ approach to Israel — a failure that was facilitated by a related failure of organizational implementation. Explicit advance knowledge of a Hamas attack at the unit level of the intelligence apparatus was not considered valuable, so it was not translated into a competitive advantage. Drawing on public information distilled through Yakov Ben-Haim’s info-gap theory, this article analyzes these two intelligence challenges related to the October 7 attack. It also discusses a means of managing uncertainty that seeks to reduce the impact of surprises on policy outcomes.

Some elements of human affairs are fundamentally unknowable because of the vast uncertainty inherent in human behavior. Scholars of economics apply the concept of Knightian uncertainty, which addresses the difficulty of forecasting in view of the unknowability of all possible events and market innovations. But when it comes to intelligence, predictive errors can also arise from deception and denial.

If a change in the adversary’s camp is truly innovative, there is no prior experience from which probabilities can be deduced. Shackle-Popper indeterminism (SPI) is a concept in which human behavior depends on what we know. When we do not have a prior incident from which to learn and draw conclusions, undetermined elements interfere with our attempts to predict future human behavior. Since policymakers must make critical decisions in contexts that are both uncertain and limited in resources and time, intelligence is needed to reduce the uncertainty as much as possible. The question thus arises: Did Israeli intelligence fail in its core task to reduce uncertainty to the greatest extent possible in the run-up to October 7, or did we witness a disruptive terrorist “innovation” by Hamas that was almost impossible to predict?

This analysis draws on info-gap theory, which originally comes from engineering design and safety analysis. An info-gap is not simply a gap in one’s knowledge or information. It is “a gap with significant consequences for the outcome of a decision.” It describes “the disparity between what is known and what needs to be known in order to reliably and responsibly make a decision.”

Accordingly, the intelligence services’ task of reducing uncertainty has two meanings. The first is to reduce uncertainty (ignorance, ambiguity, and the potential for surprise) by increasing knowledge and understanding of situations or actors. This is the traditional understanding of intelligence. The second is to reduce vulnerability to uncertainty by managing the negative consequences of ignorance, ambiguity, or surprise on the outcome of a policy or decision.

Info-gap theory argues that uncertainty is not negative per se as long as the adverse consequences of a defined policy can be reduced. It proposes the concept of robust satisficing — a term that combines the words “satisfy” and “suffice” — which aims to enhance the robustness of policies against info-gaps with significant consequences. In such a scenario, policymakers define the minimum requirements necessary to achieve a defined goal while intelligence is tasked with constantly evaluating this policy “in terms of how large an info-gap it can tolerate and still achieve the policymaker’s stated goals.” Ideally, intelligence regularly assesses the degree to which current data, knowledge, and understanding can err or change such that a policy will continue to meet the policymaker’s defined outcome requirements. A policy is considered robust when only large surprises would have negative consequences. It has low robustness when even minor surprises affect the outcome negatively.

Concerning Hamas, Israeli policymakers’ minimum outcome requirement would have been to contain the terrorist organization in Gaza and avoid direct combat friction to the greatest extent possible to protect Israel from harm. To achieve this, Israel pursued a policy of maintaining technological and military superiority vis-à-vis Gaza concurrently with bribing Hamas to keep it “weakened and deterred.” According to the principle of robust satisficing, intelligence should have evaluated these policies against info-gaps. How much could Israel err in its understanding of Hamas’ behavior, capabilities and intentions? To what extent would Israel’s policy of technological and military superiority paired with bribing Hamas still ensure the minimum outcome requirement of containing Hamas in Gaza?

Since leaving Gaza in 2005, Israel was largely successful in mitigating the negative impact of repeated rounds of violence and rocket attacks by using Iron Dome and conducting limited military operations. We also now know that Hamas actively deceived Israel by exhibiting restraint over the years as a pretense that it was satisfied with the status quo. Thus, based on prior experience and knowledge, the policy of technological and military superiority plus bribery was considered robust. This presumably led Israeli decision-makers to tolerate info-gaps concerning unusual Hamas behavior.

Recurring conflict patterns and Hamas deception over the years reinforced a common and, in retrospect, wrong understanding by Israel’s intelligence and policymaking echelons that the country’s policies to control Gaza were sound. This ultimately made them blind to the disruptive change in Hamas’ intentions and approach that a practice of robust satisficing might have helped to counteract. As a consequence, this blindness appears to have caused them to lower the level of what needed to be known to ensure the minimum outcome requirement of containing Hamas in Gaza.

Paradoxically, when you lower the level of what needs to be known, the commitment to a policy increases and the tolerance for info-gaps grows. In an illustration of this tendency, Israeli policymakers decided to shift resources away from the Hamas problem to other areas. This included, for example, reducing the military presence at the Gaza border and halting the practice of eavesdropping on hand-held radios of Hamas militants, which was considered a waste of time. Both decisions would prove to have devastating consequences on October 7.

Israel’s “blinded” understanding of Hamas rendered new intelligence on unusual activities at the Gaza border more “tolerable,” which in turn facilitated the second failure in the run-up to October 7. Israeli intelligence failed to organizationally implement new knowledge because that knowledge was not considered sufficiently valuable to be deemed worthy of translation into a competitive advantage. Reports show that at the unit level of the Southern Command of 8200, explicit information of a pending Hamas attack existed based on the previously obtained “Jericho Walls” operation plan and mounting evidence of unusual events in Gaza. However, not only was this information dismissed “top-down” by the responsible superiors, but the highly sophisticated technological tools of Israeli intelligence failed to identify the existing signs as strong.

To return to the two meanings of reducing uncertainty: The bottom-up elements of Israeli intelligence did indeed work to reduce uncertainty and ambiguity concerning a pending attack, as described by the term’s first meaning. Tragically, they were not successful at implementing this information beyond their unit for further use. That is because Israeli intelligence failed to evaluate and reduce the negative consequences of a potential surprise on policy outcomes, which is the second meaning of reducing vulnerability to uncertainty.

Some form of organizational “top-down” barriers, facilitated by a “blinded” understanding of the situation, impeded a process of robustly satisficing the existing info-gap about unusual Hamas behavior. Again, the question is whether this organizational tolerance for non-implementation of new information for further use was facilitated because policymakers and top security officials lowered the requirements of what needed to be known to ensure the minimum outcome requirement concerning Hamas in the first place.

The Israeli security establishment and policymakers came to consider their policies of technological and military superiority vis-à-vis Gaza plus bribery of Hamas as very strong, based on prior experience and understanding. This led them to tolerate larger and larger info-gaps and eventually made them blind to the disruptive change in Hamas’s intentions and capabilities. October 7 thus arrived as a catastrophic surprise — a terrorist “innovation” that disrupted existing policies.

The top-down tolerance for info-gaps concerning Hamas seemed to contribute to the second intelligence failure of organizational implementation, by which explicit and mounting knowledge about a pending Hamas attack was not acted upon. As discussed, the practice of robustly satisficing info-gaps can help manage uncertainty and surprise, including deception by adversaries, to ensure minimum policy outcomes. A robustness question in the run-up to October 7 could have been, “How much could our knowledge and understanding about our technological superiority over Gaza and Hamas’s capabilities err without altering the final assessment of the unusually aggressive military activities at the Gaza border and, more strikingly, the obtained ‘Jericho Walls’ plan?” Had the relevant policymakers and intelligence echelons regularly challenged their understanding of existing policies, the evidence of unusual Hamas activities might have been interpreted quite differently. An attack could have been identified as not only possible but even plausible.

Stefanie Kirchweger…Stefanie Kirchweger is a PhD student at the Department of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University, in a cotutelle agreement with the Department of Political Science at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Her research is focused on international intelligence relations and foreign policy. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.

The post Did Hamas’ Innovation — or Israel’s Complacency — Lead to October 7 Massacre? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire

Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen

The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.

Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.

Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.

Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”

As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.

“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.

Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.

The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.

Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.

Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.

Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.

The post Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel

People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas

Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.

“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.

“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.

Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.

The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.

In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.

“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.

“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.

In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.

Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.

In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.

“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”

Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.

Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.

To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.

In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.

Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.

Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.

The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.

The post Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns

Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak

The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.

Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.

With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.

The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.

Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.

Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.

According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.

With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.

In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.

The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.

Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.

The post Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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