https://ninkilim.com/articles/oct7_did_israel_allow_it_to_happen/en.html
The Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, stands as one of the most devastating intelligence and security failures in Israel’s history. It was also one of the most puzzling. Not only were the tactical details of the assault largely known in advance, but Israeli institutions were warned repeatedly - by their own officers, by frontline observers, and by foreign allies - yet no decisive preventive measures were taken. This raises a troubling question: was the disaster merely the product of negligence and hubris, or was it, at some level, allowed to happen?
Well before October 7, Israeli intelligence had in its possession a ~40-page Hamas blueprint, code-named the “Jericho Wall” plan, which laid out - step by step - the eventual attack: drone strikes, paragliders, breaches of the border fence, assaults on military bases, and massacres in nearby civilian areas. Obtained more than a year in advance, the plan was circulated widely among senior military and intelligence officials. Yet it was dismissed as “aspirational,” beyond Hamas’s capabilities.
The record of warnings in 2023 alone is damning. Signals-intelligence soldiers flagged preparations consistent with the plan. A sergeant in Unit 8200 warned superiors in September 2023 that the plan was “imminent,” likening it to the shofar’s alarm. Border lookouts - many of them young women stationed at surveillance posts - submitted repeated reports of Hamas drills, drones, and rehearsals that mirrored the Jericho Wall plan. They were dismissed, even threatened with punishment for persisting.
On October 6, intelligence picked up dozens of Hamas operatives activating Israeli SIM cards - a clear sign of imminent infiltration. Hours before the attack, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi himself heard these reports on a conference call but treated them as routine exercises.
Each of these signals aligned, each was minimized, and none resulted in heightened readiness.
Israel was not the only party aware of looming danger. Egyptian intelligence repeatedly warned Israeli counterparts that “something big” was coming. In late September 2023, General Abbas Kamel personally told Prime Minister Netanyahu that Hamas was planning a “terrible operation.” The United States, meanwhile, flagged a rising risk of Hamas violence in the days prior, though Washington later confirmed it had never seen the Jericho Wall plan itself.
Despite this, Israel made no special preparations, with Netanyahu later denying he had received such warnings at all.
Among the most haunting aspects of the tragedy is the Nova music festival massacre, where more than 360 young people were killed.
The festival’s extension into October 7 was approved by the IDF only two days earlier, yet no on-site liaison or enhanced defenses were provided - even though the venue lay a short distance from the Gaza border. Hours before the attack, IDF and Shin Bet officers privately discussed the possibility of a threat to the festival but did not alert organizers or evacuate the site.
When the assault began, the Israeli Air Force was at its lowest readiness in years, with just two fighter jets and two helicopters on short-notice alert across the entire country. Reinforcements to the festival area did not arrive until nearly five hours after the killings began.
The failure did not end with intelligence. On the morning of October 7, Hamas knocked out cameras, radios, and sensors in a coordinated strike, blinding Israeli forces. The first mobilization orders were not issued until more than an hour after the assault began. By then, Hamas fighters had already breached 77 points along the border.
At Kibbutz Be’eri, it took hours for the IDF to respond, and more than 100 residents were killed. At Nir Oz, the first troops arrived after the attackers had already left. At the Nova festival, commanders mistakenly believed the site had been evacuated even as hundreds of partygoers remained under fire.
Analysts often frame these failures under the rubric of “the Conceptzia” - the assumption that Hamas was deterred, focused on governance, and uninterested in full-scale war. This view, reinforced by overconfidence in the Gaza “smart fence” and other technological barriers, left Israel under-defended.
Two days before the attack, IDF commando companies were redeployed from Gaza to the West Bank to protect settlers, leaving just a handful of battalions along the Gaza frontier. Surveillance units in Gaza were already running with reduced coverage, with overnight and weekend monitoring curtailed since 2021.
The timing - Simchat Torah, a religious holiday - compounded the vulnerability.
Since October 7, multiple internal probes have cataloged the failures. The IDF’s 2025 investigation called the events a “complete failure” to protect civilians. Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Aharon Haliva resigned in April 2024, accepting responsibility for his branch’s misjudgments. Shin Bet’s own review (2025) listed serious lapses and sparked political friction. The State Comptroller has issued draft findings harshly critical of police and military commanders over the Nova festival.
Yet none of these reports assign intent. They describe misperception, misjudgment, and paralysis - but not conspiracy.
Even so, suspicions linger. In the months since October 7, Israeli policy has shifted decisively toward the mass displacement of Gazans, with open talk of “voluntary migration” and re-settlement. Former U.S. president Donald Trump has even floated the idea of transforming Gaza into prime real estate developments, luxury projects, and a hub for tech, AI startups, and manufacturing - visions impossible without first removing much of the Palestinian population.
This lends weight to the argument that the attack, though bloody and real, served political and strategic purposes for Israel and its allies.
The evidence surrounding October 7 is overwhelming in one sense: Israel had intelligence, warnings, and even real-time indicators of what was coming. The failure to act cannot be chalked up to a single oversight but to a cascade of decisions - each deferring, dismissing, or downgrading threats that in hindsight were glaring.
Whether this amounts to deliberate allowance is another matter. No conclusive document or admission has surfaced that proves intent. What exists is circumstantial evidence - but of such quantity and such oddity that many find it difficult to accept mere incompetence as the whole story.
At the very least, October 7 was not just a tragedy of surprise. It was a failure that was foreseen, rehearsed, and warned against, yet inexplicably permitted to unfold. And in the aftermath, the devastation has been used to justify sweeping actions against Gaza that align disturbingly well with long-standing ambitions to remake the territory - empty of Palestinians - into profitable real estate and high-tech industry.
Thus, while conclusive proof is lacking, the circumstantial record strongly suggests that October 7 was, if not engineered, at least allowed to happen.