by The Israeli government had determined that the loosely organized civil guard, known as Kitat Konnenut, would serve as the first line of defense in cities and towns near the border. But the guards had different training standards depending on who was in charge. For years, they warned that some of their units were poorly trained and poorly equipped, according to two Israeli military officials with direct knowledge of the volunteer teams.
Furthermore, Israeli military reservists were not prepared to mobilize and deploy quickly. Some described traveling south on their own initiative.
Davidi Ben Zion, 38, a reserve major, said reservists were never trained to respond at any time to an invasion. The training assumed that Israeli intelligence would know in advance of an impending invasion, giving reservists time to prepare for deployment.
“The procedure establishes that we have the battalion ready for combat in 24 hours,” he stated. “There is a checklist to authorize the distribution of everything. We practiced this for many years.”
Hamas took advantage of these mistakes in ways that further delayed the Israeli response. Terrorists blocked key road intersections, leaving soldiers caught in firefights as they tried to enter besieged cities. And Hamas’s siege of the military base in southern Israel paralyzed the regional command post, paralyzing the military response.
Much remains unknown about that day, including what orders were given within Israel’s top military leadership in Tel Aviv, and when. The Times investigation builds on and adds new details to aggressive Israeli media coverage of the military response.
The officers and reservists who headed south that morning, whether by order or on their own, soon learned of the chaos they were entering.
General Barak Hiram, who would soon take command of a division along the Gaza border, drove south to see firsthand how soldiers responded to what appeared to be a routine Hamas attack.
In an interview, he recalled text messages he received from soldiers he knew in the region.
“Come save us.”
“Send the army, quickly, they are killing us.”
“Sorry, we turned to you, we are already out of weapons.”
Not ready for battle
Commando units were among the first to mobilize that morning. Some said they jumped into the fight after receiving messages asking for help or learning about infiltrations on social media.
Other units were on standby and received formal activation orders.
The small size of the teams suggested that commanders fundamentally misinterpreted the threat. Troops came out with pistols and assault rifles, enough to take on a gang of hostage-taking terrorists, but not enough to engage in a full-scale battle.
Previously undisclosed documents reviewed by The Times show how drastically the military misinterpreted the situation. Records from early in the day show that even during the attack, the military still estimated that Hamas could, at best, breach Israel’s border fence in only a few places. A separate intelligence document, prepared weeks later, shows that Hamas teams actually breached the fence in more than 30 locations and quickly moved deep into southern Israel.
Hamas fighters invaded Israel with heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, land mines and more. They were prepared to fight for days. The Israeli commandos apparently believed they would be fighting for only a few hours; one said he went out that morning without his night vision goggles.
“The terrorists had a clear tactical advantage in firepower,” said Yair Ansbacher, 40, a reservist in a counterterrorism unit who fought on Oct. 7. He and his colleagues primarily used handguns, assault rifles and sometimes sniper rifles, he said.
The situation was so serious that at 9 a.m., the head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, issued an unusual order. He told all combat-trained employees and weapons carriers to head south. Shin Bet is not normally activated with the military. Ten Shin Bet agents died that day.
To make matters worse, the military has acknowledged that it moved two commando companies (more than 100 soldiers) to the West Bank just two days before the attack, a reflection of Israel’s mistaken belief that a Hamas attack was not an imminent threat.
That left three infantry battalions and one tank battalion along the Gaza border. But October 7 was the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah and the Sabbath. A senior military officer estimated that about half of the area’s 1,500 soldiers were away. He said another infantry battalion had been reassigned years earlier after Israel finished building a security wall around Gaza.
It is unclear whether Hamas knew that the army was understaffed, but it had fatal consequences. When the attacks began, many soldiers were fighting for their lives rather than protecting nearby residents. Hamas stormed a base, Nahal Oz, forcing soldiers to abandon it and leaving behind dead friends.
And just as civilian volunteers had warned, the first line of defense inside Israel was quickly overwhelmed. Some units barely had enough weapons for an hours-long battle, officials said.
Hamas also worked strategically to weaken Israel’s advantage in firepower. The terrorists attacked Israeli tanks, hitting several of them, Brig. General Hisham Ibrahim, commander of the armored corps. The tanks ran out of ammunition, forcing the crews to fight with ground soldiers.
In another case Widely covered in the Israeli media., Hamas fired at an Israeli helicopter, forcing it to land near Gaza. The paratroopers were unharmed before the helicopter burst into flames.
All of this should have been a clear sign that Israel was under widespread attack and facing a dire situation.
But Hamas launched another strategic attack that morning that nearly blinded Israel’s army at a critical moment.
