How Mossad operate and why it failed to stop Hamas attack? On October 6, sirens wailed through several cities, jolting thousands of Israelis out of their sleep. In addition to a sensational land, sea, and air attack into Israeli territory, the Palestinian organization Hamas had fired about 5,000 rockets from Gaza.
Hamas sent its fighters to sabotage towns, kibbutz settlements, and even a music festival in the open air.
Israelis fled into their homes in fear as reports of terrorist attacks by Hamas fighters going door to door, shooting civilians, or dragging them away abounded.
Boats and motorized paragliders that used guerilla tactics to breach Israeli soil early in the morning added to the Hamas land assault.
Despite the combined efforts of Shin Bet and Mossad, the two renowned Israeli security and intelligence services, the attacks have resulted in hundreds of deaths, making it the worst attack on Israeli soil since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
The deaths and the attacks have dealt a serious blow, especially to the reputation of Mossad, whose accomplishments in Israel and around the world are legendary.
How Mossad Functions
The 7,000-person Mossad is the second-largest espionage organization in the West, behind the CIA, with a $3 billion annual budget.
David “Dadi” Barnea, who took over as Mossad director from Yossi Cohen in June 2021, was chosen through a very secretive process that was only known to a small group of people working for the Israeli prime minister’s office, the organization, and the Civil Service Advisory Committee, which examines and approves even the prime minister’s appointment.
Mossad has a number of departments, but little is known about how they are organized internally.
In addition to having a network of informants and agents inside Palestinian militant organizations, it also has spies operating in adversarial nations like Iran, Syria, and Lebanon.
The intelligence agency’s extensive spy network gives them intimate knowledge of the movements of militant leaders, allowing them to carry out precise assassinations when necessary.
Departments:
- The largest division of the Mossad, the Collections Department, is in charge of international espionage operations.
- With friendly foreign intelligence services and countries with which Israel does not have formal diplomatic ties, the Political Action and Liaison Department engages in political activity.
- The Special Operations Division, also known as Metsada, carries out highly sensitive assassinations, sabotage, paramilitary, and psychological warfare operations.
- The LAP (Lohamah Psichologit) Department is responsible for psychological warfare, propaganda, and deception operations.
- The Research Department produces intelligence, including daily situation reports, weekly summaries, and detailed monthly reports.
- The Technology Department develops advanced technologies to support Mossad operations.
How Mossad operate and why it Failed to stop Hamas attack?
The failure to foresee the Hamas attack on Saturday is all the more pressing given Israel and Mossad’s stellar record of successfully repelling external attacks.
It has been questioned how Hamas was able to amass thousands of rockets and missiles so close to Israel’s borders without Israeli intelligence noticing it or why Israel’s dependable Iron Dome missile defence system was unable to deflect every projectile coming from Gaza.
The most recent Hamas infiltration attempt was successful despite the sophisticated security measures, including cameras, ground-motion sensors, and routine army patrols, along the Gaza-Israel border.
Videos of a bulldozer demolishing a section of the ‘iron wall,’ which marked the border between Israel and Gaza, have surfaced on social media.
Hamas fighters were able to breach the fence by severing the wire and traveling by boat and paraglider to reach the area from the sea.
There are significant reasons to wonder how and why Israel’s nearly faultless intelligence agency was unable to identify the attack given its size, complexity, and apparent coordination requirements as well as the months of planning and coordination that must have gone into it.
Some have compared it to the 9/11 attacks in New York, which had an impact not just on the CIA but also on the entire international intelligence community.
