The recent Hamas attack on Israel illustrates the persistent and disturbing reality of terrorism in today's world posing immediate and long-term threats to global peace and security. In 2022, there were 6,701 deaths from 3,955 terrorist incidents worldwide which indicates that the terrorist groups will continue to spread fear, undermine social cohesion, and target innocent civilians to further their extremist ideologies.
Countries like India and Israel therefore cannot lower their guard and must adopt a proactive approach to preventing terrorist attacks rather than having to respond to them. Israel of all countries should have known that a terrorist organisation like Hamas has no morality and principles when it comes to fighting their foes, and hence it should have been prepared for all eventualities including what happened on 07 October.
All layers of the much-hyped Israeli intelligence setup failed miserably and Israelis were literally caught napping during this incident. While that technical intelligence can be overcome is understandable, what happened to the time-tested human assets in the Gaza Strip is not. It is hard to believe that Israel does not have even one effective source inside Hamas; if that is the case, how does it expect to finish Hamas as is being proclaimed? Smothering each and every house in the Gaza Strip with High Explosive will not work, but is sure to bring more retribution with another “Yom Kippur” or a “Sukkot” for remembrance.
Fighting terrorism is simply about “intelligence”, “intelligence” and “intelligence”, with no substitute. Such intelligence, picked from all sources, be it human, electronic, satellites, mobile phones, social media, internet or open sources, has to be 100 per cent, round the clock, all-pervading, and move seamlessly between all forces fighting the terrorist threat, with no turf jealousies. This implies that the intelligence set-up of nations must be so impervious that the size and number of undetected terrorist threats should be minuscule.
Intelligence setups must also be able to direct the deployment of surveillance and reaction resources to provide an effective response to a detected or undetected threat. However, in this case, Israeli intelligence turned out to be more than vulnerable. It was simply not able to assess Hamas's intentions, nor able to detect the logistics preparations required for such an assault. Israel’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, in a radio interview six days before the assault had so confidently remarked “Hamas is very, very restrained and understands the implications of further defiance,”.
Despite all redundancies, intelligence setups may have occasional unexpected slip-ups and surveillance and reaction elements of security forces must be prepared for such an eventuality. Israel created a high-tech fence with a subterranean wall duly covered by remotely operated cameras, sensors and weapon systems, but forgot the golden maxim that every obstacle has to be physically covered with observation and fire. It was thus that they removed ground troops from the Gaza fence and shifted them to other sectors, leaving the border defence mechanism a bigger “Paper Tiger” than the famed intelligence setup. Unsurprisingly, it crashed like a house of cards with 1500 Hamas fighters infiltrating at 30 points along the border, destroying remotely operated cameras, sensors and weapons systems. Many of these terrorists were able to reach Israeli bases where many soldiers were killed in their sleep.
The futility of the Israeli response
The Israeli knee-jerk reaction to the Hamas attack, with retaliatory attacks on the highly populated Gaza Strip, demonstrates the futility of a response. It reminds one of repeatedly failed scorched-earth tactics used by many peeved nations in the past. This approach, which has already recorded 1400 killed and 4,475 injured in Israel and 3540 killed,13,300 injured and 4,00,000 displaced on the Palestinian side, will only result in the loss of more civilian lives and deepen the chasms and cause more insecurity for Israel in the long run. Israel knows well that Hamas cannot be won militarily alone and has to be tackled in all domains i.e., social, psychological, cyber, legal, financial and diplomatic.
Israel cannot afford to upset the sensibilities of the liberal elements in the Islamic world and its supporters by its actions causing unparalleled misery to the people of Palestine. Its leadership should therefore carry out a cost–benefit analysis, demonstrate statesmanship in dealing with the issue, and temper its response to ensure that the loss of civilian lives is minimised. It also needs to take a hard look at its own security set-up and take remedial steps to ensure that 07 October-like incidents are not repeated.
Lessons for others
This attack by Hamas will be remembered and read by military historians for years to come not only for its barbarity, cruelty and flouting of international humanitarian law but also for the sheer audacity and the lesson it taught to the Israeli Defence Forces. No matter how Israel responds and how much damage it causes to Hamas, it will take decades for it to overcome this slight by a terrorist group.
One must not underestimate one’s foe, and never let one’s guard down be it Holi, Diwali, Id or Christmas, intelligence is the new Queen of the Battle, and boots on the ground are there to stay—these are the few takeaways for countries like India from this episode.
The author is a retired Major General of the Indian Army.
Views expressed in the column belong to the author and not the organization
