Israeli intelligence warned of the Hamas attack on October 7 three hours before it occurred.

BarcelonaOn October 7, 2023 at 3:03 a.m., three and a half hours before the accident occurred the Hamas attack In Israel, the Israeli intelligence agency issued a suspicious activity alert in Gaza through its security services. But the police, who were responsible for security at the Nova music festival, didn't receive it until 7:03 a.m., half an hour after the massacre in the city of Sderot and the border kibbutzim had already begun. This is according to a report from the Israeli police intelligence division, to which the newspaper has had access. Haaretz.

The intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, sent out a preliminary alert after discovering that several Hamas members had activated cell phones with Israeli SIM cards in the Gaza Strip at 3:00 a.m., but an error in the police's internal system reportedly prevented the force from receiving it. Senior police officials quoted in the report claim that an update to the encrypted system for relaying information between the two forces the night before the attack caused a delay in the alert.

"No one noticed until early in the morning," the Israeli newspaper states. According to the conclusions of the investigation, which was conducted a year ago, the police were not informed that this update had occurred, ruling out a case of negligence on the part of police officers working in the police operations room. However, the Shin Bet asserted that the alert had been issued and received in real time.

Senior officials in the intelligence division and the Shin Bet had warned of system errors that were causing delays in the transmission of information since 2021. But authorities had delayed remedying this problem because they had found a workaround to the police and the urgent notices from the commander of the Yamam counter-terrorism unit. In this regard, senior police officials admit in the report that, even if they had received the notice, it is not clear that they would have increased the police alert levels. The intelligence notice provided few details, and the Shin Bet had not classified it as an emergency incident. On the contrary, it had classified it with a low urgency level.

Just two years after the attacks that represented the worst security disaster in Israel's history and exposed its security services, the various reports prepared by the intelligence services and the military have still not clarified the causes or the responsibilities for what allowed them to happen. But Benjamin Netanyahu's government has repeatedly refused to launch any state investigation. Now the report further deepens the crisis of trust between the police and the Shin Bet, which have traded accusations since October 7. Hamas attacks caused the deaths of 1,139 people, the kidnapping of another 250, and triggered Israel's genocidal war against the Gaza Strip.