Day 515 - Devastating IDF Oct. 7 probes depict years of misconceptions

Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute
audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and
the Jewish world.


Military reporter Emanuel
Fabian joins host Amanda
Borschel-Dan for today's Daily Briefing.


Israel carried out an airstrike in Syria on Monday evening,
targeting a military facility near the city of Tartous, in the
country’s northwestern coastal region. And today, the Defense
Ministry says it is carrying out activities to clear explosives
from an area of the Golan Heights near the Syrian border. Fabian
updates on IDF activities inside Syria.


We spend the rest of the episode on the series of IDF probes into
the failures on October 7, 2023. We learn about the immediate
failures, including that the attack was a surprise with no
intelligence warning. Hamas had numerous forces and was attacking
several areas simultaneously. And the IDF had far fewer forces
and minimal capabilities available: When the attack began,
involving over 5,000 terrorists, just 767 IDF troops were
stationed on the border.


And then we turn to specific investigations into the air force,
the navy and the intelligence wing, and we learn about the series
of disasters that led to the tragedies at the Nahal Oz IDF base
and Kibbutz Kfar Aza.


And finally, we zoom into one of the many tales of heroism that
were highlighted in the reports, the story of Kfar Aza resident
Brig. Gen. Yisrael Shomer, who fought off terrorists with a
kitchen knife before securing a weapon and eventually killing 20.


Please see today's ongoing liveblog for
more updates.


For further reading:


Israel attacks military site in northwestern Syria; no
casualties reported


Entire Gaza Division was overrun for hours, and IDF
didn’t know it; 767 troops faced 5,000 terrorists


IDF identified but ignored 5 warning signs of Hamas
attack on eve of Oct. 7, its probe shows


The intel on Hamas attack plan was there, but IDF simply
refused to believe it, probe finds


Before Oct. 7, IDF probe shows, Hamas duped Israel into
thinking it did not pose a major threat


IDF’s Oct. 7 probes show it misread Hamas for years, left
southern Israel utterly vulnerable


Terrorists took Kfar Aza in an hour. Recapturing it took
the IDF days, probe finds


‘Systemic failure’: How Nahal Oz base, 850 meters from
Gaza yet utterly vulnerable, fell to Hamas


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podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.


IMAGE: Members of Zaka walk through the destruction caused by
Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, as they collect the dead
bodies, near the Israeli-Gaza border, in southern Israel, October
15, 2023. (Edi Israel/Flash90)


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