Israelis held somber ceremonies on Monday to mark a year since the deadliest terrorist attack in the country's history, a Hamas-led raid that shattered its sense of security and has since spiralled into wars on several fronts with no end in sight. FRANCE 24's Sharon Gaffney speaks to Alon Pinkas, who served as Israel's consul general in New York from 2000 to 2004. He says that the general mindset in Israel is still one of devastation, agony, humiliation and shock, even a year after the attacks.
Watch moreOctober 7 attacks: Israel's intelligence failures
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Watch moreOctober 7 attacks: Israel's intelligence failures
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NewsTranscript
00:00Welcome to Apropos, well a year on from the Hamas massacre, Benjamin Netanyahu continues
00:07to avoid accepting responsibility for Israel's biggest ever security failure.
00:13Several senior military and intelligence officials have either resigned or admitted that mistakes
00:18were made.
00:19Speaking at a commemorative event to mark the October 7th anniversary, a bereaved father
00:24of one of the hostages again called on the Israeli government to hold an inquiry into
00:30the massacre.
00:31Netanyahu insists that such questions must wait for the end of the war.
00:36Our colleagues at France 3rd Television have been meeting some Israelis who've lost faith
00:41in their country's intelligence and security services.
00:45Solange Moujon has more.
00:48A wall that was meant to be impenetrable between Israel and Gaza.
00:55Yet on October 7th, 2023, there were multiple breaches along this separation barrier.
01:02Thousands of Hamas fighters passed through its barbed wire and concrete fortifications.
01:08Some came by sea, others by air with motorized paragliders.
01:18That very morning, Yaron Mayor was at home.
01:21He fought against Hamas to protect his family.
01:24He's accepted to speak to us and relive that day.
01:28This is the story of being face to face with terrorism, of living through security failures.
01:40There was an assailant who came through the kitchen window.
01:44I saw him.
01:46I stood up and I walked towards him.
01:50I shot him twice.
01:53Boom, boom.
01:55And he fell outside the house.
01:58Mayor was part of a security watch on his kibbutz.
02:02He was armed.
02:03But he was not trained or prepared to defend his home from such an extensive attack.
02:10The worst case scenario that we, the kibbutz's intervention team, were trained for was an
02:16attack with a maximum of 10 fighters.
02:20That's something that no one even considered as possible.
02:27Hundreds of Hamas fighters would enter the homes on the kibbutz, bringing with them terror,
02:32death and a total security fiasco.
02:36Surrounded, Mayor barricaded himself with his wife and children in this room.
02:41The bulletproof glass and door saved their lives.
02:45But the nightmare would take its toll.
02:47He no longer trusts Israel to protect him and his family.
02:50It took security forces four hours to come to their rescue.
02:56The barrier, which was so costly, it was created with underground tunnels in mind.
03:01No one thought an attack would come from above ground.
03:06The high-tech barrier wall has multi-layered fencing with detection tracking sensors.
03:11Below ground, there are concrete structures to prevent any tunnels from being dug.
03:17But such fortifications were far from infallible.
03:19For on October 7th, Hamas drones hit, with great precision, Israel's control towers.
03:26In Tel Aviv, retired generals and judges are leading a citizen-led investigation about
03:32Israel's security failures.
03:34Israelis will have to make do with the Civilian Commission of Inquiry, as the Israeli government
03:39has refused to conduct an official public probe.
03:43The Citizen Commission heard the testimonies of surveillance soldiers.
03:47Pegged as the eyes of the army, this all-female force, they claim that their warnings of suspicious
03:53activity are not taken seriously.
03:57Seen here at their base on October 7th, with Hamas just outside, many of them say that
04:04they had sent word of suspicious activity.
04:09We observed attempts to cross the barrier, the laying of landmines, patrols.
04:14We reported all of this and no one responded.
04:19Sixteen of these surveillance soldiers were assassinated.
04:23Seven others were taken hostage.
04:26Arez Price is the father of one of the victims.
04:29Every week he comes to the memorial that was built right near the base to pay tribute to
04:34his murdered daughter and her troop mates.
04:36Noa Price was 19 years old.
04:39She is photographed here with her fellow soldiers before that tragic day.
04:43It is really important to pay tribute to her memory and that of the other soldiers.
04:51Noa and all the others, they were just kids with a brilliant, brilliant future before
04:56them.
04:58Gaza is just 600 metres away.
05:01One year ago, Hamas fighters were able to make the journey without being stopped.
05:06Standing before the army base where his daughter was killed.
05:09Arez Price condemns what he calls a political failure.
05:13There was this notion among our politicians that Hamas would not do anything because they
05:17were getting money from Qatar.
05:19Their quality of life was improving so they wouldn't do anything.
05:23A faulty calculation, an oversight, a fatal error.
05:27That would make October 7th the deadliest day for Israelis in the history of their nation.
05:34We're joined now by political adviser Alan Pincus who served as ambassador and Israel's
05:40consul general in New York between 2000 and 2004.
05:45Thank you so much for being with us on the programme.
05:47We do appreciate your time, Alan.
05:49We heard from some survivors in that report from Solange, also the families of some of
05:55those who died in the Hamas massacre.
05:58Sirens are again ringing out tonight in central Israel as it marks a year on from that massacre.
06:05How are people feeling there on this anniversary?
06:09Well, it's good to be with you on this bad day.
06:13But there was a siren outside where I'm sitting right now five minutes ago.
06:18You understand that we're in the midst of all this.
06:24I have to say that even though an entire year passed, October 7th, 23 and October 7th, 24,
06:31the general mindset, the general zeitgeist in Israel now is still that of devastation,
06:37agony, humiliation and shock.
06:42People are still angry at the political echelon.
06:45People are still disappointed with the military's performance.
06:49And even though there were some military successes in the last few months, more in Lebanon than
06:54in Gaza, I think that that sense of devastation and that sense of dejection and that sense
07:01of vulnerability that was exposed is still very prevalent.
07:07And how divided is Israel?
07:09Because looking in from the outside, it seems that it is, particularly when we see commemorations
07:14being held separately, the government holding its own memorials, some of the families getting
07:19together to hold another, then protests meanwhile ongoing outside the prime minister's residence.
07:24So what does that tell us about the state of Israeli society a year on from that massacre?
07:32It's united in the sense of we're all in this together.
07:37It is united in the sense that there's a war that is justified, a just war in Gaza and
07:44a just war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
07:47But that's where the unity and the solidarity end.
07:53One centimeter beyond that, and you see the same political divisions that existed.
07:58It's Netanyahu who did not take responsibility for what had happened, who is not willing
08:04to be held responsible, who blames the entire world but himself, the military, the intelligence,
08:11President Biden, the world, Iran, everyone but himself.
08:17Even though he can claim that he had some successes against Hezbollah in the last month
08:24or so, it's still very unpopular.
08:28Seventy percent of Israelis think he should resign.
08:31In fact, 70 percent of Israelis think he should have resigned on October 7, 2023, and every
08:37day that has elapsed since.
08:41However, because of those relative successes in Lebanon and because there's no real political
08:47opposition in Israel, certainly not a potent and combative opposition, he is still where
08:54he is, and he's even improving in his polls.
08:57Yes, because it seems that his popularity has in fact been boosted in recent weeks.
09:03You've mentioned about how he's been avoiding responsibility since the Hamas massacre.
09:08What now for Netanyahu?
09:11What is going to happen in terms of those calls also for this commission of inquiry?
09:15Is there any hope for the families that the government is going to agree to hold something
09:20like this?
09:21Yeah, there is.
09:23There is hope, but people need to understand, our viewers need to understand, that an official
09:29national inquiry commission takes two years before it publishes its findings.
09:36This is that they don't subscribe or they don't adjust themselves to political timetables.
09:43And until then, we will have at least one election cycle, if not two.
09:49So even if such a commission is established, and I think it will be at some point, and
09:53even if such a commission does a very serious and rigorous job, we're looking at 2027 or
10:042026 before it publishes its findings.
10:08Well, everyone knows the very simple truth.
10:12Here is a government that was responsible, and a prime minister particularly, that was
10:17responsible for the worst calamity, the worst debacle, the worst catastrophe, the worst
10:22day that turned into the worst year in Israel's history.
10:26And they think it's business as usual, you know.
10:29They deal with politics and the survival of the coalition.
10:33And they play petty politics when an entire nation is in agony.
10:39And you, you've mentioned that, you know, Israel failing on so many fronts.
10:43You've written about that as well, in terms of policy, deterrence, security, intelligence.
10:49How did Israel manage to fail on so many fronts before the Hamas massacre?
10:55Well, there are three reasons.
10:58The first is, you know, what Israelis called a concept, a conceptia, is the use that, the
11:08linguistic use.
11:09That is that Mr. Netanyahu, in his attempt to avoid any kind of negotiations with the
11:17Palestinians, and in order to weaken the Palestinian authority, actively or proactively rather
11:24strengthened Hamas by allowing money to be, allowing money to be funneled into the Gaza
11:30Strip, particularly Qatari money.
11:32And when the Qataris, in their defense, in 2018 said that they lost control of what happens
11:40to that money that was meant for the functioning of the government, Mr. Netanyahu then dispatched
11:46his head of Mossad, then Yossi Cohen, Mr. Yossi Cohen, to implore them not to.
11:52So one thing was that you strengthen Hamas.
11:55The second was that, the sense that Hamas is being deterred.
12:00The second, the second reason that it happened is what is called a failure of imagination.
12:06When you absolutely convince yourself that Hamas is deterred, that they have no interest
12:11in a war, that they're more busy and preoccupied with governance rather than a war with Israel,
12:20you fail to see what they intend to do, and you think, and that was in your previous story,
12:27you tend to think that even if something horrific happens, it's a ten-man strong Hamas group
12:34that walks in and murders a few people or takes one or two hostages and tries to run
12:39away.
12:40Not the attack, not the assault on the scale of what we saw on October 7th.
12:47And the third reason for this failure that you mentioned is tactical.
12:54You know, the military was just ill-prepared.
12:58Based on those two concepts that I just described, the military was lax.
13:04The intelligence was there, by the way.
13:09You know, the soldiers, particularly the female soldiers, the women soldiers, were in charge
13:15of monitoring with all kinds of devices and technologies, have warned repeatedly that
13:21this was going to happen, but they were ruined by the operational loss of the military camp
13:27in Hamas.
13:28Okay, Alan, we'll have to leave it there for now, but thank you so much for your time on
13:32the program.
13:33That is former political advisor and ambassador Alan Picas, who served as Israel's consul
13:38general in New York from 2000 to 2004.
13:41That is it from us for the moment.