When you recall that just as the Nazis underestimated the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto who rose up against them on April 16, 1943 and whom they had to put down with blood and fire for a month, until May 16, 1943, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the Israeli army, underestimated the ability of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian organizations to demolish the wall of the largest concentration camp in history that Israel turned the Gaza Strip into, they answer that the analogy could not be more erroneous. But the reality is that we had to count, at least in theory, on the fact that the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto were going to say enough, just as an attempt by the Palestinians in the “Gaza concentration camp” to tear down the wall was elementary.
The Government of Netanyahu has so far blocked the investigation into the events of October 7, 2023. Attempts to create a parliamentary commission of inquiry have been a trip to nowhere. The creation within the IDF of a commission to investigate the military’s inability to prevent the attack, highly criticized by the Israeli far-right, has also produced no results.
Now begins, therefore, a political phase in which this investigation could finally shed some light on the events that led to October 7, 2023, what happened, more precisely than what is known so far during that day.
It will not be easy either because Israel is entering a pre-electoral stage soon that is expected to be long and busy. The legislative elections to elect the 120 deputies of the Knesset (Parliament) must be held no later than October 27, 2026.
What Netanyahuyour Government and the IDF had extensive information about what was happening very close by, in the Gaza Strip, it is not news, as such. We have already realized this in these pages. Information, by the way, very precise that, compared to what later took place, leaves hair standing on end due to its similarity, at the same time that the Egyptian Government alerted the Israeli authorities of a possible operation, data that has given rise to conspiracy theories about the “tolerance” of Netanyahu -for their own purposes- with the action of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian militias.
But it is not the first time that Israel has been surprised by its adversaries. The first major operation that caught the Israeli Army off guard was the 1973 Yom Kippur War launched by Egypt. Intelligence failed completely. A commission of inquiry concluded that Israeli intelligence services had underestimated the Egyptian army.
The total lack of foresight on the part of Israel – assuming that it was a mistake – on October 7, 2023 led to an operation, according to several sources consulted, different both from the one that had been planned by Hamas – whose design the Israeli army had known since July 2022 – and from the results achieved.
The central objective of this operation, in addition to showing that Israel’s security was a myth, was to capture a number of Israeli military hostages to exchange for several thousand Palestinian militants imprisoned in Israeli prisons.
First, different groups of armed Palestinians and civilians, who were unaware of the original plan, crossed the Gaza Strip and supported the assailants. They also captured people who were not part of the original plan. And, secondly, the improvised response of the Israeli army – overwhelmed – which launched Apache helicopters onto the battlefield with orders to shoot at anything that moved, amplified the violence.
It has been said, and rightly so, that the order to shoot was based on an ancient army practice, the so-called Hannibal directive, the Carthaginian general, Hannibal Barca, who preferred suicide rather than being a prisoner of the Romans, put in place in 1986, after the kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah militias. The directive stated that a dead Israeli soldier was preferable to falling into the hands of the Palestinians.
But, according to other sources, it was not only the Aníbal directive that can explain the number of deaths that day. There are testimonies that, precisely, attribute many deaths to the shooting from the Israeli helicopters – 28 were used, which had to refuel to reload ammunition that they used up in their first response – which acted left and right without an organized response plan. These helicopters with extraordinary rounds of shots and bomb drops were the ones that destroyed houses and cars.
And many Israeli deaths of Israeli families are also attributed to this desperate response. All data, therefore, require being subjected to an independent investigation.
Netanyahu It has refused to carry out any investigation for these two years, because it is evident that the responsibility for the lack of foresight – discarding conspiracy theories – is negligence of a political and security nature. And he points to himself and to the political and military leadership.
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