Israel prides itself on its intelligence, its means to see assaults coming.
However in the midst of its holy vacation season, it has been caught out.
Wherever this leads, this can be a huge intelligence failure for Israel and a catastrophe for the Netanyahu authorities.
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Israel’s intelligence businesses have all-pervading surveillance of their enemies, by means of know-how and human intel.
Periodically, they neutralise threats with navy operations in Gaza, decreasing the potential of Hamas. Breezily, they name it mowing the grass.
However they’ve did not comprise this risk fairly actually, with a number of militant squads bursting out of the Gaza Strip, wreaking havoc, killing many and taking hostages.
Each Israeli taken by Hamas is a catastrophe for the federal government in Jerusalem.
The five-year-long kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, a captured younger Israeli soldier, was an agonising interval for Israelis.
Not like their enemies, who glory within the martyrdom and dying of their younger, Israelis maintain the precept sacred that nobody is left behind.
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We have no idea what number of have been taken into Gaza. Some seem like civilians. However their destiny will torment Israel and its authorities.
So will the photographs of Palestinians apparently dancing on Israeli tanks.
A destroyed Israeli tank on the Gaza Strip fence east of Khan Younis. Pic: AP
The sight of buildings on fireplace in residential neighbourhoods, the failure to cease the waves of hundreds of missiles.
Israel is deeply divided already, polarised by the battle over the Netanyahu authorities’s plans to reform the judiciary which have mobilised tons of of hundreds onto the streets for months of protest.
The controversy has sapped the morale of the navy and promptly many in its ranks to threaten mutiny.
That will or could not have contributed to the failures that now we have witnessed right this moment, but it surely definitely will not assist the response.
For the final weeks, the discuss has been of peace – both Israel and Saudi Arabia sounding optimistic concerning the possibilities of a historic detente.
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Video appears to indicate Hamas paragliding over border
However the prospects of peace breaking out between the Saudi custodians of the 2 holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina, and the occupiers of the third, Al Aqsa within the metropolis Muslims name Al Quds, could have deeply alarmed many and made the scenario extra febrile and unstable.
The discuss of Saudi-Israeli peace was additionally a risk to the affect of Iran, whose relations with Hamas have hardly ever been higher.
That may undoubtedly have been a consider making this occur. The Palestinian operation was multipronged and well-planned.
The worry is there’s extra to come back, and a divided Israel caught with its guard down will not be able to see off the risk.