The Shin Bet said it ignored intelligence from Gaza about a planned Hamas attack, but also that government policies may have encouraged the militants to carry out the attack.
Israel's Internal Security Service on Tuesday took responsibility for failing to heed warning signs of a planned Hamas attack before the militants' devastating strike on October 7, 2023. But the agency also blamed the Israeli government for policies it said allowed Hamas to quietly stockpile weapons, raise funds and gain support, among other failures.
The Shin Bet's findings, as the security service is known, came days after a similar investigation by the Israeli military found that senior officers had significantly underestimated Hamas and misinterpreted early warnings of a major attack.
The report released Tuesday consisted only of a declassified executive summary, leaving an unknown amount of material undisclosed. But even the executive summary revealed agency omissions.
Plans for a Hamas raid into southern Israel landed on the desks of intelligence agents in 2018 and again in 2022, the summary said, but the agency did not view the warnings as a significant threat. As a result, the agency said, it did not include it in scenarios examining future clashes with the militant group.
While the Shin Bet said it took Hamas seriously, it acknowledged that Hamas had failed to respond adequately to either early signs of attack plans or later signs of impending bloodshed.
Israeli officials said they were releasing the findings, though they were keeping parts of the report classified because of the severity of the attack. About 1,200 people were killed that day and about 250 were taken hostage, triggering the war in the Gaza Strip.
