Gaza, Oct 8 (IANS): Though Israel is no stranger to terrorist attacks, Saturday’s assault was unprecedented - not least because of the lack of warning, the media reported.
Israel’s military on Saturday found itself caught off-guard, despite decades in which the country became a technology powerhouse that boasts one of the world’s most impressive armed forces and a premier intelligence agency, CNN reported.
The gunmen came from air, sea and land. They shot at civilians, took hostages and forced families to barricade themselves indoors, fearing for their lives.
A day that began with air raid sirens blaring out in the early morning had by lunchtime turned into one of the most terrifying attacks Israel has known in the 75 years of its existence. Assailants from Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls the impoverished and densely populated Gaza Strip, had by nightfall killed hundreds of people and wounded hundreds more.
The questions for Israeli authorities are legion. It has been more than 17 years since an Israeli soldier was taken as a prisoner of war in an assault on Israeli territory. And Israel has not seen this kind of infiltration of military bases, towns and kibbutzim since town-by-town fighting in the 1948 war of independence, CNN reported.
“The entire system failed. It’s not just one component. It’s the entire defence architecture that evidently failed to provide the necessary defence for Israeli civilians,” said Jonathan Conricus, a former international spokesman for the Israel Defence Forces.
“This is a Pearl Harbor-type of moment for Israel, where there was reality up until today, and then there will be reality after today.”
The IDF has repeatedly dodged questions about whether Saturday’s events constitute an intelligence failure. Military spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht told CNN that Israel was focused on the current fight and protecting civilian lives.
“We’ll talk about what happened intelligence-wise after,” Hecht said.
Whether by coincidence or design, the attacks came the day after the 50-year anniversary of another unforeseen conflict, when a coalition of Arab states launched a surprise attack against Israel on Yom Kippur, in 1973.
Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, it has spent billions of dollars securing the border from attacks. That has striking at any weapons fired from inside Gaza into Israel and stopping terrorists from trying to cross the border from air or underground using tunnels. To stop rocket attacks, Israel has used the Iron Dome, an effective rocket defense system developed with help from the US, CNN reported.
Israeli officials will almost certainly look at where those systems failed on Saturday. As of Saturday morning, Israel said Hamas had fired 2,200 rockets, though it did not release figures on how many of those were intercepted. Officials have not commented on if the border fence did its job, CNN reported.