In Oct. 7 Report, Israeli Security Agency Puts Some Blame on Netanyahu Government

Israel’s domestic security service on Tuesday assumed responsibility for failing to heed warning signs of a planned Hamas attack before the militants’ devastating strike on Oct. 7, 2023. But the agency also faulted the Israeli government for policies it said had allowed Hamas to quietly amass weapons, collect funds and gain support, among other failures.

The conclusions from the Shin Bet, as the security agency is known, were published days after a similar inquiry by the Israeli military found that senior officers had vastly underestimated Hamas and misinterpreted early warnings that a major attack was coming.

The report published on Tuesday consisted only of a declassified summary, leaving an unknown amount of material undisclosed. But even the summary made the agency’s lapses clear.

Plans for a Hamas raid on southern Israel reached the desks of intelligence agents in 2018 and again in 2022, the summary said, but the agency did not treat the warnings as a meaningful threat. As a result, the agency said, it did not include it in scenarios exploring future confrontations with the militant group.

While the Shin Bet said that it took Hamas seriously, it acknowledged that it had not responded appropriately to early indications of attack plans, or to the later signs of impending bloodshed.

The Israeli authorities said they were publishing the findings, even as they kept parts of the report classified, in light of the gravity of the attack. About 1,200 people were killed that day, and some 250 people taken hostage, setting off the war in the Gaza Strip.

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