Palestinians take photos on an Israeli tank captured on Oct. 7, 2023, after crossing the border between Israel and Gaza. (Credit: Saïd Khatib/AFP)
BEIRUT — The Shin Bet, Israel's domestic intelligence and security service, sent a warning to Israeli police about potential "offensive activity by Hamas" at 3:03 a.m. on Oct. 7, 2023, but it was only received at 7:03 a.m. — half an hour after the start of the "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation — due to a "system update" in Shin Bet's information transfer, according to a police investigation revealed Monday by Haaretz.
This update to Shin Bet's encrypted information transfer system had been initiated the day before, and police, who were responsible for the security of the Nova festival that was attacked by Hamas militants, only learned about its existence during their investigation into the attacks, the left-leaning Israeli daily notes. The warning was spread to police districts, after being processed by the police intelligence division, only around 8 a.m.
Shin Bet sent the warning during the night after discovering that mobile phones with Israeli SIM cards had been activated by Hamas members in the Gaza Strip.
"According to information in our possession, there is an indication of the use and activity of the SIM network in several Hamas brigades. So far, we have no information on the nature of the activity. Nevertheless, it should be noted that this is an unusual aggregate and, considering other indications, this could indicate offensive activity by Hamas,"
Shin Bet wrote at 3:03 a.m., information it revealed last March during an internal investigation, Haaretz reports.
'Shin Bet knows how to alert us when necessary'
Tensions between Shin Bet and the police persist to this day, due to the ongoing exchange of accusations over the Oct. 7 security failures, the newspaper notes.
According to police officers quoted by the Israeli left-wing daily, the police likely would not have raised the alert level even if they had received the warning in time, since Shin Bet "had not classified this warning as an emergency event" and only mentioned "suspicious signs" in Gaza.
"Shin Bet knows how to notify us when it's necessary. We heard nothing from them that night, nor even after the attack began," a senior police official told Haaretz.
"Until today, police officials are banging their heads against the wall wondering how no one bothered to pick up the phone to call us," he continued.
Police forces were only called "to the southern district after the rocketing began and the terrorists infiltrated [into Israel], a fact that shows no prior information had been received by police," another Israeli police source told the daily.
Numerous Israeli failures on Oct. 7 have already been exposed through various inquiries. Last month, Haaretz reported that the senior official in charge of security plans for the Nova festival had chosen not to reinforce event security an hour before the Hamas attack, despite "alarming signs of unusual Hamas activity" reported by intelligence services.
Hamas militants, who began their attack at 6:30 a.m., killed at least 370 festivalgoers, and 44 more were taken hostage, according to Israeli official data.
The "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation killed a total of 1,219 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data. The Israeli retaliatory campaign has killed at least 67,000 people in Gaza, mainly civilians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, as the offensive continues.
