It is my practice not to always forward news as soon as I hear it. Sometimes, I let it percolate in my mind, putting it together with other odd pieces of information until it forms a larger picture.

So, here are a few pieces I’ve been putting together.

A newly surfaced document entitled “Detailed End-to-End Raid Training,” compiled in the Gaza Division of the IDF by Israeli intelligence which monitored Hamas training exercises said these exercises included raiding military posts and kibbutzim, kidnapping soldiers and civilians, and maintaining the hostages once they were in the Gaza Strip. The report also detailed the next steps after breaching into Israel and taking over the posts, determining that their instructions were to hand over the captured soldiers to the company commanders. They were instructed to kidnap between 200-250 hostages.

This document, which described in chilling detail almost exactly what was to happen on October 7, was distributed to the IDF on September 19, 2023. The report was certainly known to the intelligence leadership, at the very least in the Gaza Division, reported Kan News.

If the IDF had precise information about Hamas’s intentions, the million dollar question is why did it take everyone by surprise? Why was nothing done to prevent it?

Comparisons to the situation of the Yom Kippur War begs to be made here. At both times, precise intelligence was ignored by those entrusted with the country’s security, with catastrophic results. Close to 3,000 soldiers were killed in the Yom Kippur War.

Despite its equipment and intelligence, the IDF is only as good as the people who lead it. The same people who received this report in September are still in place, leading the war in Gaza.

An officer recently told Arutz 13 that the war in Rafah could have been over weeks ago, if not for the weak and confused commands of their higher ups.

One thing I can say for sure, people like the Defense Minister and the Chief of Staff must be living with the deepest feelings of guilt for their failures.

Another piece I’ve been mulling over is the report that the delay in going into Rafah has given Hamas ample time to study the IDF’s tactics and prepare defenses. I would say that the terrible loss of soldiers in the last week points to exactly that. While the IDF has made enormous progress in Rafah, there are still twenty intact tunnels filled with terrorists, some of them no doubt filled with our hostages. While we must, absolutely, lay the responsibility for this delay at feet of Joe Biden, who has done everything in his power to hurt Israel’s military capabilities, from withholding weapons (Netanyahu told Hochstein yesterday: “Give us the weapons, we will do the rest”) to making impossible demands on how and where to fight.

But there is something else here too. Perhaps the guilt of the present Minister of Defense and Chief of Staff is making them extra cautious in not wanting to make any more mistakes, and thus they are holding back our soldiers.

Not a few soldiers are fed up with this approach. An incendiary tape released on 26 May by an anonymous soldier and widely distributed was seen as nothing less than a call for a military coup. In the tape, the soldier says among other things: “We want victory, our brothers weren’t murdered for nothing, we weren’t raped for nothing, and we weren’t slaughtered in our beds for nothing. We who jumped into the war on October 7 and up to these moments are still in the reserves not at home with our families, we want victory, we want a decision, we want to dismantle Hamas… Whoever harmed the people of Israel, whoever harmed our brothers the Jews, the Druze, the Bedouin, we want to destroy them. And you, Mr. Galant, cannot do that. So here I am informing you to change your tune. Understand that we want to win…”

And I will end with this: The Rabbis Law, of which I have written so much, has been removed and will not be voted on at all at this time. As for the other divisive law for the drafting of haredi soldiers, whatever the government intends, it has to pass through committee first. Here is the Facebook page of the chairman of that committee, the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, MK Yuli Edelstein, at the opening debate of the conscription law:

“I saw the headlines and heard all kinds of definitions – the conscription law, the non-conscription law, the evasion law. It’s just not relevant…

“We have the option of enacting a new law that will provide a real answer to the needs of the IDF and the security establishment in the current reality.

“The law will have to provide an answer to the reservist and his wife whose children ask if their father still lives with them or not; to a mother who asks why her son receives another call-up order on the day of his release; and to the head of the hesder yeshiva (religious draftees who combine military service with talmud study) who asks when his students will be able to return to study Torah after six months of being in the reserves, and many others that I have not mentioned.

“I would also like to hear from the IDF their real needs, but also the rationale behind every number that is thrown out. We need to provide a short-term solution but one that will work in the long term as well. This means allowing an ultra-Orthodox guy who enlists in the army to also live as ultra-Orthodox. It’s not always easy, there will also be conflicting values, but the IDF must prepare for this.

“If we want to pass a serious law, we cannot play games of opposition and coalition. The test of the result will be if we pass a correct law according to the needs of the army. If we do this seriously and without populist positions and interests, we will make history here. But if it is more important to dismantle the government, nothing will progress.”

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