Israeli intelligence caught off-guard during Hamas attack: Mossad ex-director
"The nature of the attack sheds light on the state of Israeli intelligence. Israel is paying the consequence of not thinking strategically,” he said at the Synergia Conclave on Friday.
Published: 19th November 2023 06:25 AM | Last Updated: 19th November 2023 11:02 AM | A+A A-
A picture taken from the border between Israel and Gaza shows smoke billowing during Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip. (Photo | AFP)
BENGALURU: Uzi Arad, former director of Mossad and former national security advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu, said that Israel’s intelligence failure in predicting the Hamas attacks had caught the intelligence systems off guard.
“The surprise attack caught Israel off-guard on a strategic level. The nature of the attack sheds light on the state of Israeli intelligence. Israel is paying the consequence of not thinking strategically,” he said at the Synergia Conclave on Friday.
He said they did not receive enough warnings of the nature of the attacks. “We overstated the value of our technical means to provide the kind of warning needed to counter such an attack. We fell short of sufficient intelligence,” he accepted.
He said, “We also failed in knowing the enemy. We refused to accept the very character of those jihadi groups. Politicisation of intelligence was responsible for the conflict. Our intelligence was politicised. It happened to us at a great cost.”
He remarked, “We should have information from reliable sources, which has been done in the past. It is the duty of intelligence organizations that are mandated to provide a warning. Victories are not promised and warnings are not guaranteed in the field of intelligence. So we should do it professionally and responsibly, and combat radicalism cooperatively.”
He also went on to add that the attack on Israel has a far-reaching impact and has “the potential to escalate into a national crisis with international potential.” Arad emphasised that the Hamas attack poses a security breach to the very idea of “world peace”. And the crisis unfolding in the Middle Eastern region should be referred to as a “global crisis.”
