After all of the vast mounds of data and information come out on Thursday about all the different ways in which the IDF failed to prevent Hamas’s October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel, the disaster has not come close to being probed properly or understood.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has prevented even starting any kind of state inquiry, whether led by a judge or not, for nearly 18 months, though the IDF started its probes seriously in March 2024.
So fearful of a probe was Netanyahu that in January 2024, he vetoed letting the IDF do an external probe of itself by a former IDF chief to avoid the possibility that whoever led that probe might go beyond their mandate and also comment on the political echelon.
There was a reason it started in March 2024. From February 2024 to early May 2024, there was only low-key fighting in Gaza and Lebanon. In other words, there was time.
If there was time for commanders in the field, there was certainly time for the prime minister, despite the overly simplistic slogan that no probing can start while the “war is still on.”
This low-key period repeated itself from June 2024 to August 2024, even if there were a few very short upticks in military action.
Netanyhu's role
If the war was the reason for Netanyahu stalling the probes, then after the November 27 ceasefire with Hezbollah, the prime minister would have opened a probe.
There was some very low-level fighting with Hamas from then until the January 19 Israel-Hamas ceasefire, but nothing heavy, part of how the IDF was able to finish much of what it had started.
Once the January 19 ceasefire was signed, Netanyahu started saying there could be no probing until the hostage issues and post-Gaza war issues were worked out – a blackhole in terms of time.
And the irony is that, based on the IDF probes, Netanyahu may be less responsible than many now portray him because they believe he has moved to aggressively cover up any blame he might receive.
A major message of the IDF probes is that IDF intelligence and the Shin Bet simply misunderstood Hamas and its chief, Yahya Sinwar.
This would not free Netanyahu of any responsibility.
He still was the architect of containing and deterring Hamas, weakening the Palestinian Authority, facilitating delivering Qatari funds to Hamas, and of a smaller smarter army.
Also, many will hold him accountable for his judicial overhaul weakening the military, especially in the perception of Israel’s enemies.
And all of these criticisms of Netanyahu may be valid.
But another point in the IDF probes was that Hamas almost invaded Israel twice in 2022 – meaning long before the judicial overhaul.
This does not get Netanyahu completely off the hook on this point, as critics could say that Hamas finally only went through with the invasion once it saw a weakened Israeli society from the judicial overhaul, but no one can say that the idea of invading Israel came about because of the judicial overhaul.
The bottom line is that Israel will not be able to fully improve for the future and restore faith with the public until all of its officials are probed.
Netanyahu is not the only outstanding issue.
The Shin Bet's failure
The Shin Bet has not yet published anything or talked about a timeline for publicizing anything, even redacted.
This is highly problematic as the Shin Bet was even more responsible for intelligence gathering, both technologically and regarding human spying, than the IDF, which closed its Unit 504 human spying Gaza division around 2012 to give the agency full ownership of spies in Gaza.
There have been prior Shin Bet scandals, and the agency was probed, and key aspects of its failures have been made public, even as recently as the 2014 Gaza war regarding how ready or not it was for Hamas’s tunnel threat.
A number of IDF officials made it clear that aspects of their probe have large gaps because the Shin Bet has not even shared information with them.
Some might give Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar a pass because Netanyahu is trying to fire him, and they are afraid he would use an October 7 against Bar to try to politicize the agency, as many say happened to the police since 2023.
But he could publicize the report and announce that he will resign only 6-12 months from now, whenever the Shin Bet’s current probes into Netanyahu’s aides' work for Qatar would already be completed.
And this still would not resolve everything.
The IDF is the only one that is coming clean to the public now, but it has left its own cloud by refusing to lay blame with any specific officials.
Some IDF sources say that this would miss the point: that the central failure of October 7 was system-wide for a decade, infecting everyone with hubris in addressing Hamas.
They also note that almost all of the top IDF officials involved took responsibility and have resigned between March 2024 and now, including IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi as of next week.
Certainly, there is a danger of losing sight of the need to reform the whole system in a major way by getting stuck in personal battles apportioning blame.
But 1,200 Israelis died, and 250 hostages were kidnapped.
When such a tragedy strikes, there do need to be some individuals singled out for special blame, if for no other reason than to send a message to future officers that they will be held accountable, to the public that there has been no cover-up, and to allow the dead to rest.