Hamas rushes towards the crowd at the festival and shoots… He grabbed a bleeding woman by her hair and dragged her away.
“Bodies are piled up on the road.”
Shalomi, a resident of Sderot in southern Israel, reported the terrible local situation to Reuters on the 8th (local time), the day after the surprise attack by the Palestinian armed group Hamas, saying, “There are corpses and burned cars everywhere.” . Citizens crying and hugging their dead family members and children crying endlessly after losing their parents were seen everywhere.
The reason why the Israeli mainland was breached on the largest scale in 50 years since the 1973 Yom Kippur War was because Israeli intelligence authorities failed to recognize the attack in advance and that it occurred on the 7th Sabbath right after the Jewish holiday of Subumk (Sukkot, 6th) It is interpreted that the attack occurred early in the morning. In addition, in addition to a surprise air strike using thousands of rockets against Israel’s famous high-tech defense network called ‘Iron Dome’, the initial response failed when armed fighters simultaneously infiltrated the land, sea, and air. Hamas inflicted a fatal blow on Israel through an asymmetrical and surprise attack that caught the enemy off guard in timing and method.
According to foreign media, Hamas confused the Israeli military by concentrating thousands of rockets and then infiltrated members on electric paragliders into Israeli villages on the southern border of the Gaza Strip. A video posted on social media showed several Hamas fighters flying over the Israeli border wall in a motorized paraglider.
At the same time, Hamas members crossed the northern and eastern borders using pickup trucks, motorcycles, and motorboats and infiltrated about 20 villages and military bases in Israel. Afterwards, at least dozens of Israeli civilians and soldiers were captured and returned to Gaza.
According to CNN, people who attended a music festival held in the Negev Desert in southeastern Israel ran through the desert in a panic as soon as the Hamas attack began. Local media Haaretz described the scene as a ‘massacre’ and a ‘battle zone’ and reported that Hamas members on motorcycles rushed into the crowd and opened fire. Posts are being posted on social media sharing the list of 500 people who went missing after participating in the festival.
View largerAn Israeli woman is being kidnapped by Hamas terrorists. Captured by Israeli media YNETNEWS.In addition, Hamas members went on a de facto hunt for civilians, searching through civilian residential areas with firearms. On this day, a video of them forcibly dragging Israeli civilians, including women, the elderly, and children, went viral on X (formerly Twitter).
The officers grabbed the bleeding civilian woman by her hair and forced her into the jeep. The woman’s arms were tied with cable ties. Other officers forced another woman, who was pleading, “Please don’t kill me,” onto a motorcycle and left. Some members pulled a soldier who appeared to be already unconscious from an Israeli tank and threw him.
Hamas inflicted a fatal blow on Israel through an asymmetrical and surprise attack that caught the enemy off guard in timing and method. Due to this incident, there is growing responsibility for Israeli intelligence agencies such as Mossad (foreign intelligence) and Shin Bet (domestic intelligence), which boast the world’s highest level of intelligence and technology.
At dawn on the Jewish Sabbath, thousands of rockets were fired and the Mossad and others had no clue until Hamas members infiltrated the Gaza Strip on electric paragliders. Military experts pointed out, “Israel can only be seen as having been the victim of Hamas’s deceptive or disinformation operations.” This means that the failure of the information war to miss the signs of the enemy’s large-scale provocation is the main defeat.
Israel’s boasted low-altitude air defense network, Iron Dome, also revealed its limitations in protecting against mass artillery fire. Israel has boasted that Iron Dome’s interception rate against Hamas’ rocket attacks is around 90%. However, they were helpless against this massive offensive, which involved firing thousands of rounds in a short period of time.
Music festival participants fleeing Hamas attacks. Instagram video captureThere is growing criticism that there are holes in the intelligence capabilities of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This is why CNN commented, “It was like the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II.” The media reported that U.S. and Israeli officials will soon write a report on why they missed important information in this incident.
There is also a possibility that Israel, which has been humiliated, may launch a large-scale ground attack on the Gaza Strip and occupy it. Israel has already ordered the evacuation of residents in seven areas of the Gaza Strip and announced a full-scale military operation. Some believe that Israel will deploy more troops than during the 2014 conflict with Hamas, when it mobilized about 80,000 reserve troops. As civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip increase, the possibility of a vicious cycle of ‘bloody revenge’ cannot be ruled out, with Hamas also responding with additional attacks.
This attack by Hamas has many implications for our military as well. North Korea, which has deployed about 1,000 long-range artillery pieces near the cease-fire line, can fire about 10,000 artillery shells per hour into the metropolitan area. In addition, North Korea’s asymmetric and surprise warfare capabilities, which have hundreds of AN-2 aircraft for low-altitude infiltration that are difficult to detect by radar, a large special operations force, and various unmanned aerial vehicles, are evaluated to be several times superior to Hamas.
A military source said, “Using the Hamas attack as an example, we need to thoroughly inspect and supplement our preparedness measures not only for North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats but also surprise provocations using asymmetrical power.”
Cairo =
Military reporter Sang-ho Yoon [email protected]
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.