A serious error by the Israeli intelligence services, this is how most analysts have classified the great Hamas incursion on October 7. The Islamist attacks have caused an escalation with an uncertain outcome, but it is not the first time that Hebrew espionage – considered one of the best in the world – has failed to combat its enemies.
Mossad has been pointed out as the main person responsible for this fiasco. Until now, this secret service had championed Israel's reputation for effectiveness in security matters. But putting the magnifying glass only on it is falling short when it comes to analyzing the entire intelligence network of that country, which in reality rests on three pillars.
The first would be Mossad itself, founded in 1949. This institution is responsible for information gathering and counterterrorist operations in other countries. If you want some examples, its agents have been behind the murder of scientists linked to the Iranian nuclear program and also that of the leader of Hamas, Mahmoud al Mabhouh, in a Dubai hotel in 2010.
As a sign of Israel's strategic consideration of the issue, it does not assign its foreign intelligence agency to operate in Gaza and the West Bank. Surveillance of armed groups in the Palestinian territories is the responsibility of the internal security service, the Shin Bet (also known as Shabak and created in 1949). This will sound familiar to those who have seen the series Fauda (Netflix), since its protagonists are members of this unit.
The third pillar of the Hebrew spy agencies is Aman, the Hebrew acronym for the Directorate of Military Intelligence. It is an organization of the Israeli armed forces with different divisions that is in charge of aspects such as electronic surveillance (the famous Unit 8200). Control of the border with Gaza had relied on these new methods and it seems that they were neutralized by Hamas in the recent attacks.
Aman is also often involved in crises with kidnapped people. He has under his command the Sayeret Matkal, the best detachment of the Israeli special forces, comparable to the British SAS or the American SEALS. Among his record of merits is the rescue of hostages in Entebbe in 1976. The only Hebrew military casualty in the operation was the commander of the unit Yonatan Netanyahu, brother of the current prime minister (also a veteran of these commandos).
As in other countries, the different Hebrew intelligence agencies should in theory be coordinated, but in practice this is not always the case. Although they have so far been able to boast of being among the most competent security services in the world, and waiting to determine in detail the errors recorded at the beginning of October 2023, their history contains some other disastrous episodes.
The surprise incursion by Hamas has reminded us of the attack carried out by Egypt and Syria 50 years ago in the Yom Kippur War. Israel lived in complacency after its victory in the 1967 conflict. The feeling had spread among the Jewish government and military that the Arab countries were not in a position to launch a major military operation and, in any case, they could detect any attack against Jewish territory with 48 hours notice.
Just 24 hours after the attack, Mossad became suspicious when it detected the withdrawal of Soviet personnel from Syria and Egypt. In parallel, the then director of the foreign espionage service, Zvi Zamir, met with a double agent in Rome, the Egyptian Ashraf Marwan, who assured him that the attack by the Arab countries was imminent.
The Mossad passed the information to Aman, but its director, General Eli Zeira, did not properly assess the threat, believing that the Arabs were only preparing maneuvers. He even distrusted Marwan, who had already warned of other previous attacks that had turned out to be a false alarm.
The alarm signals were increasing, so in the end the head of military intelligence agreed to inform Prime Minister Golda Meir's cabinet. There were only ten hours left until the attack on Syria and Egypt. The leader ordered the mobilization of reservists, but she did not want to authorize preemptive airstrikes because of the US warning that she would not support Israel if this country appeared as the aggressor in a new war in the Middle East.
After the war, Israel created the Agranat commission to investigate the errors committed. Its final report was highly critical of the Israeli military leadership and caused Meir herself to resign. Zeira was also pointed out as one of the main people responsible for the failure to react in time in 1973. However, in the conclusions, the Mossad was praised for having raised the alarm at the last moment.
Only a few isolated figures criticized Mossad's role in the Yom Kippur War at the time. In fact, the most serious accusation came from within their own ranks. It was former agent Victor Ostrovsky, who in his book By the way of deception accused his former colleagues of having concentrated too much on the persecution of Black September, a group responsible for the murder of eleven Jewish athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972. The commission Agranat did not reflect this theory and many historians have dismissed this and other statements in the old operative's book as not very rigorous.
Although the Mossad saved face at a time as critical for Israel as Yom Kippur and despite the fame it has cultivated, it has other important mistakes to its credit. For decades and despite dozens of attempts, they were never able to locate the country's number one enemy, Yasser Arafat, leader of the PLO, although several Arab media saw the hand of these spies in the death of the Palestinian leader.
Another attempt at these “selective killings” by the Mossad led to one of the greatest humiliations in its history. In September 1997, ten Hebrew agents (katsas) infiltrated Jordan with Canadian passports with orders to kill Khaled Meshal, the newly appointed political leader of Hamas. At that time, after the Oslo peace agreements, the Islamist organization was becoming the benchmark for Palestinian resistance, and Israel wanted to make a show of force.
The coup would be in Amman and poison was chosen, since they did not want a spectacular action that would cause an incident with Jordan, a country with which a definitive peace agreement had been signed only three years before. On September 25, according to plan, two Mossad agents (the rest provided support in one way or another) tried to inoculate him with poison.
The plan was to spray the Palestinian leader in the middle of the street with a soda can containing the poison, simulating an accident. A failure in the container meant that the agent could not open it, Meshal's bodyguard (a tough jihadist, veteran of Afghanistan) began to struggle with the two agents, who, in the end, were able to splash the poison on their target.
The Jewish agents tried to flee, but were stopped by the Jordanian police, who eventually discovered their identity. The rest of the operatives took refuge in the Israeli embassy, and Meshal was admitted to a hospital. The Netanyahu government wanted to avoid a diplomatic incident at all costs and to free his agents, it sent the director of Mossad himself, Danni Yatom, to apologize to King Hussein and negotiate the departure of his people.
Jordan has a significant percentage of the Palestinian population, so King Hussein could not allow Meshal to die without risking serious unrest in his country. He was also enraged by Israeli meddling in his territory, so he demanded the formula to manufacture an antidote, even getting the US government to intervene to pressure Israel, which he ended up relenting.
The problem was getting the agents out of Jordan. The king felt cheated and wanted more concessions; He requested the release of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of Hamas, in prison since 1989. Faced with Jewish reluctance, the monarch even threatened to execute the two arrested and order his soldiers to enter the embassy for the other katsas.
The pressure grew on Netanyahu's government. The Israeli press itself harshly criticized its secret service for the failed operation and international pressure finally made Israel give in, which agreed to release the sheikh.
The third intelligence service also has important failures to its credit. The Shin Bet was accused of not having prevented the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel, on November 4, 1995. The assassination was another traumatic event for Israeli society.
The person responsible was a Jewish militant of the extreme right, Yigal Amir, opposed to the peace process with the Palestinians. The Shin Bet had been monitoring him due to his radical behavior, but did not take action against him because intelligence analyzes ruled out that he would end up taking action.
The director of the Shin Bet, Carmi Gillon, resigned shortly after the attack, but Shimon Peres, the new prime minister after Rabin's assassination, who was in the midst of a serious security crisis, rejected it. The head of the security agency again offered her resignation in January 1996, and this time the Government did accept it.
The criticism was not limited to incompetence; Conspiracy theories emerged about whether the Shin Bet had incited Rabin's assassination. They did not remain mere gossip: one of the agents responsible for controlling Amir, Avishai Raviv, was accused in court of having contributed to the radicalization of the far-right militant. He was tried in 2000 and his lawyer was able to prove his innocence.
Given this background, it is very likely that sooner or later it will be revealed to what extent Mossad, Aman and the Shin Bet have been responsible for the events that have triggered the most serious crisis that the Middle East has experienced in recent decades.
