Former Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi met with residents of Ein Besor, in the Gaza Strip, and gave his version of events regarding the night before the October 7 massacre and the intelligence failures that led to the October 7 massacre.
""October 7 was a great and terrible failure. I am the commander of the IDF on that day - it is my responsibility. I will go with it, I will look it in the eye. I am here in the name of pain, in the name of responsibility. We did not underestimate Hamas, but we did not think it was in a position to initiate anything. It managed to hide it from us very well," Halevi said in recordings published on Channel 13.
At his side was the former commander of the Southern Command, Yaron Finkelman.
Finkelman said that the IDF did not truly understand the threat from Gaza. "The enemy managed to surprise us not only on October 7, but with the capabilities it had built. We were not able to understand it in terms of intelligence and we were not able to understand it in terms of our perceptions.".
Halevi was asked about the current security situation in the Gaza Envelope - and replied: "I get asked a lot here in the area, whether it will be safe to live here - and I tell you, yes. We are committed to learning and improving from this terrible day.".
In a recording brought to 'Kan News', Halevi can be heard talking about the military collapse in the early hours of October 7. "For five or six hours, the Gaza Division, which did a lot to defend this place, collapses. It's very hard for me to say this, but the defense collapses in the first few hours. We prepare for six to eight infiltration points and receive 40, around six thousand terrorists. We knew that, but the amount of vehicles that go in and fight the reinforcements makes things difficult.
""Even tonight, unfortunately, we don't even have anyone saying in the discussion that a war is going to break out. More than that - there is no one raising the alarm. There are signs, and in retrospect there was a possibility of doing better and more correctly. But we didn't have the right to hold a discussion about whether this is a war or an exercise, as was the case before the Yom Kippur War," said Halevi.
The former chief of staff revealed that twice before October 7, Hamas almost carried out the attack, but this was stopped due to internal disputes within the organization: "We know in retrospect that they were preparing for this twice before October 7 and came very close to carrying it out. There is internal dispute, and it does not happen in the end. Even the times before, even in retrospect, we do not see the signs of this. These are things that we learn only after the war begins and we extract intelligence from within the Gaza Strip.".
Again: three times in total, including on October 7, and on all of these occasions - the security establishment knows nothing about the fact that beyond the fence an entire army is planning to occupy the settlements surrounding the perimeter.
In recordings published on Channel 12, Halevi is heard explaining why warnings were not passed on to the political echelon.
""I don't need approvals from my two superiors, the defense minister and the prime minister," Halevi said. "And if we recognized that something small or big was going to happen, we would warn. And sometimes we decide to talk to the political echelon - there's no hiding it here.".
According to him, there was no one to provide advance information - "neither in the IDF nor in the Shin Bet," and not one out of two million Gaza residents gave a warning. "This is an intelligence failure," he admitted. "We did not have the right, as we had before the Yom Kippur War, for example, to hold a discussion about whether this was a war or an exercise.".
Halevi said that on Saturday night, hours before the attack, no unusual signs were found: "Even on this night, we don't have anyone saying - a war is going to break out. There's no one raising an alarm." According to him, Hamas was careful to broadcast a routine: "Houses, families, all the signs were routine - that was the deception.".
During the conversation, he emphasized that he bears full responsibility: "The observations worked, but we didn't detect. We didn't know that so many people were preparing. It ended in failure.".
At the same time, he referred to the decisions of the political and military echelons over the years: "That was the order of priorities - first Iran and Hezbollah, and then Hamas - and we supported it. But the concept collapsed.".
Halevi also rejected the claim that senior commanders "went back to sleep" on the night of the attack: "These conversations don't take place from their beds or while napping. They take place while writing, while sitting, for long hours. Yaron (Finkelman), myself, the head of the AMTZ, the operations chief, intelligence officials and Shin Bet - everyone was in the discussions.".
But it seemed that his answers did not satisfy the residents of the encirclement, and when asked by them how he had not seen what they had been seeing for years - the training, the preparations, and the signs - even during the period when he was head of Military Intelligence and commander of the Southern Command, he replied: "For years we convinced ourselves that a broad attack would not happen. The choice was not to recognize this as an approaching war.".
As for the question about the allegations of treason on October 7, he said: "There is not one in the Shin Bet or the IDF, we haven't found one. One person who agreed that this terrible day, not even one percent of it, would happen for some external reason. I suggest you believe me, I will not stand here before you to say things that are not true. Free yourselves from this terrible thought that someone among us betrayed.".
Towards the end of the conversation, the former Chief of Staff said that "Today it is safe to live here, we can return to the perimeter." However, he added a clear warning: "An enemy near the border is a conceptual error, and this must not be allowed in the future.".
Join the Haredim 10 Facebook page >>
Join the X page of Haredim 10 >>
Want more news, videos and stories? Join the Haredim 10 WhatsApp channel >>
