Gaza, Oct 16: One week after the murder of Israelis in a Hamas attack on southern Israel, the New York Times reveals how well-prepared the terrorists were and how extensive the Israel’s intelligence failure was.According to the report, heavily armed Hamas commando forces invaded using maps and precise plans to attack specific targets, with the knowledge of the IDF’s defensive weak spots, Ynet News reported.
The investigative report was based on at least one document found in the possession of a killed terrorist, and on videos filmed by the invaders themselves, as well as on discussions with people in the know of things.
It revealed a surprising knowledge of the terror group into the workings of the IDF, including the location of specific units and how long it would take reinforcements to arrive after the Hamas attack.
Hamas came in under the protection of its heavy rocket fire on Israel, by a massive invasion over land, and by air and sea. In order to disrupt the military’s observation capabilities, Hamas launched UAVs to destroy communication towers and observation posts along the Gaza border, causing blind spots, while bulldozers broke through the border fence allowing hundreds across in the first wave, sources told the paper. A further 1,800 followed the initial invaders, YNet News reported.
The terrorists attacked at least eight military bases in addition to their assault on civilian communities. The New York Times said the clips taken by the terrorists’ head cameras, showed the invasion of the bases and the massacre of troops in them, in some cases killing soldiers in their sleep.
A military official told the paper that in some of the bases, the terrorists knew the exact location of communication servers and destroyed them so that the scope of the assault would not be revealed and a call for help would not be made quickly.