In some ways, at the very least at this second, Israel is way extra prepared than it was on October 7 to defend towards invasion. However in some methods, little has modified, and in different methods Israel is extra susceptible.
Two years after October 7, is the IDF actually prepared sufficient to stop a future invasion?
To start with, the reply relies on the entrance. Israel shares borders with Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, the West Financial institution, Jordan, and Egypt, and the hazard of invasion most likely corresponds to that order.
For now, Israel is unlikely to be invaded from any of those borders, as a result of it’s nonetheless on the assault and has safety zones versus Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza which it didn’t have earlier than October 7.
However it could not at all times have these safety zones. There are already critical negotiations occurring about IDF withdrawals from its 5 positions in Lebanon and its 9 positions in Syria, even when it doesn’t appear that both withdrawal would occur all that quickly.
Likewise, it appears fantastical to speak about Hamas invading Israel at a time when over 130,000 reservists have been known as up and 5 IDF divisions are invading Gaza Metropolis and different components of Gaza.
IDF troopers put together their weapons on a tank at a short lived military base reverse the Jabalya refugee camp within the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. (credit score: RONEN ZVULUN/REUTERS)
However whether or not in three months, six months, or later, Israel’s longest struggle will finally finish, after which the true sport will start: will Israel keep prepared or let its guard down once more?
Having been briefed by a variety of prime protection sources over the course of the struggle, together with in current weeks, The Jerusalem Publish can state that in some ways, at the very least at this second, Israel is way extra prepared than it was on October 7 to defend towards invasion.
Nevertheless, in some methods little has modified. And, paradoxically, in some methods Israel is arguably extra susceptible.
The place has the IDF improved?
First, IDF obligatory service and reservist fighters – for at the very least the subsequent 5 to 10 years – would be the most battle hardened, skilled, and ready-to-fight-on-short-notice troopers Israel has ever had. Merely put: they’ve fought extra and in additional diversified eventualities than Israel’s troopers used to struggle.
However many of the questions relate to IDF intelligence.
With IDF intelligence, there have been at the very least 4 main enhancements primarily based on classes realized from October 7.
Unit 504 in Gaza
One of the crucial evident failures of October 7 was that the IDF had zero human spies in Gaza. The Shin Wager had some, but in addition not many. It had been greater than a decade because the Shin Wager took over full human spying accountability in Gaza, and the navy had disbanded its Unit 504 spy companies within the south.
This left the IDF over-reliant on technological spying, which may generally be efficient however can’t essentially take the true “temperature” of an adversary’s actions and intentions, as a lot as it may well decide up particular recognized goal digital indicators relating to an adversary.
For the reason that begin of the struggle, a really giant Unit 504 spy service was reestablished in Gaza, and plans are for it to stay in place even as soon as the struggle ends. This could at the very least give a greater probability for the IDF to choose up on future Hamas invasion plans in comparison with the capabilities it had on October 7.
New war-warning brigade
Someday after Maj.-Gen. Shlomi Binder took over Navy Intelligence from Maj.-Gen. (res.) Aharon Haliva in August 2024, he established a full-fledged brigade of officers to focus particularly on offering warnings of potential wars.
One of many causes that IDF intelligence ignored all the warning indicators about Hamas desirous to invade Israel was that nobody in IDF intelligence had the precise function to insist on an “official” warning and that the warning be taken critically by all prime political and protection officers. This was on prime of the final “conception” (normative framework) downside through which the entire Israeli political and protection institution couldn’t think about Hamas invading, as a result of it was satisfied Hamas was deterred.
When a couple of lower-ranked intelligence officers tried to sound the warning, they have been ignored by their mid-level supervisors, and the warning both by no means bought to higher-up officers or was so diluted by the point it bought to them that they didn’t take it critically.
Binder concluded that it was inadequate to have even a small variety of “warners” in IDF intelligence, and that solely by having a full brigade of a whole bunch of officers centered on the mission, together with a brigadier-general-level commander, would the warnings be taken critically and make it via the IDF’s large paperwork to the highest.
By the way, Binder has additionally created a brand new mechanism for lower-ranked officers to anonymously ship him data which their submanagers are ignoring.
Though Binder has stated that at the very least certainly one of these items of knowledge led to a serious change in method which saved lives, it’s uncertain that, in the long term, prime IDF intelligence officers will take this format critically. It’s because, more often than not, lower-ranking officers are, in truth, much less educated than their superiors.
In different phrases, simply because, on one uncommon event, a lower-ranked officer noticed a grave hazard that everybody extra skilled missed doesn’t imply {that a} majority of lower-ranked officers’ warnings are helpful.
Pink crew brigade
As talked about, one of many issues main IDF intelligence to ignore Hamas invading as a situation to plan for was the groupthink which contaminated most Israelis. One of many fast fixes to this concern, even earlier than Binder took over, was to strengthen IDF intelligence “pink groups” (in Hebrew: ipcha mistabra). These groups’ sole job is to level out potential errors and drawbacks in no matter methods and techniques the IDF is about to choose.
Binder did elevate the pink groups additionally to brigade stage, which means together with a whole bunch of officers and a senior commander. However varied prime former Israeli intelligence officers have stated that, culturally, this division won’t ever be taken all that critically.
Put merely, giant establishments want paradigms to map out their work and plan their budgets, they usually can’t second-guess these paradigms all that always.
A few of these officers consider this division will hardly ever quantity to a lot in serving to keep away from main errors like an invasion, however they harbor larger hopes for the brand new IDF war-warning brigade.
SOLDIERS ARE seen close to a navy helicopter at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon after the Hamas invasion of October 7. (credit score: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS)
Studying extra about Islamic radicalism and Arabic
One of many astonishing revelations of the probes into IDF intelligence’s October 7 failures was that it had, lately, began to cut back the variety of Arabic-speakers and specialists in Arab and Islamic faith.
Cyber-spying and cyberattacks have been all the fad, and new synthetic intelligence instruments could possibly be used to comparatively rapidly translate Arabic messages for non-Arabic-speakers. So why waste assets on old school intelligence when extra assets could possibly be poured into cutting-edge applied sciences which might carry higher worth?
This period of IDF intelligence managers had overlooked the truth that expertise could be fooled or outwitted systematically in ways in which human overseas tradition and language specialists can see via and diagnose.
IDF intelligence is making an attempt to fill the empty seats of Arabic-speakers and specialists, a dearth left over from the pre-October 7 period. Coaching such folks can’t be carried out in a single day.
So long as there isn’t a invasion within the subsequent yr or so, and so long as IDF intelligence sticks to restoring the old school Arabic-speakers and specialists, this downside ought to now be correctly addressed. However be careful for these specialists to be in the reduction of once more in 5 or 10 years. It’s tougher generally to precise in technical knowledge the advantages their work reaps versus the extra simply quantified advantages from technological instruments.
BESIDES THE 4 constructive developments, there are at the very least three unfavourable developments which the Publish has encountered from a mixture of briefings and visits to ahead bases in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria.
Huge query marks – lookouts
There are enormous query marks about whether or not the IDF has improved in any respect relating to taking its principally feminine low-ranking border lookouts critically.
Notoriously, many feminine lookouts who repeatedly warned of potential Hamas invasion issues and who have been ignored main into October 7, have been then killed and brought hostage.
In response, the IDF has supplied some higher safety to these feminine lookouts and has publicly stated it should take them extra critically sooner or later.
Nevertheless, when the Publish approached the IDF to be taught extra about how these lookouts are being taken extra critically, the navy appeared to vow a readiness to supply a briefing, after which declined to supply any data, regardless of repeated makes an attempt.
This, together with the IDF’s documented historical past of ignoring lower-ranked troopers in favor of higher-ranked ones and fancier technological instruments, means that this will likely nonetheless stay a blind spot for the navy.
Not sufficient troops on the border, overreliance on expertise
In the event you go to nearly any of Israel’s borders, you’ll discover a definite lack of troops on the bottom.
One of many largest classes of October 7 was imagined to be that counting on technological sensors, drones, and periodic patrols is inadequate. If there are a whole bunch of meters or perhaps a couple kilometers of the border that are guarded solely by a fence and expertise, a affected person enemy may determine methods to take out the sensors and keep away from the patrols to simply penetrate via the wall.
In mid-August, round 15 Hamas fighters managed to penetrate an Israeli ahead military base in Khan Yunis in Gaza, wounding troopers and spending important quantities of time inside the bottom earlier than they have been killed or compelled out.
An investigation revealed that although there have been a small variety of IDF guards on rotating watch responsibility for components of the bottom, there was at the very least one facet of the bottom which was solely protected by sensors, drones, and periodic patrols. Hamas took out the sensors, timed its strikes to keep away from the drones and patrols, and penetrated the bottom with out firing a shot.
By some luck, the troopers inside have been solely wounded and never killed.
The Publish was not shocked, as a result of that is nonetheless how all of Israel’s borders are being run.
High officers nonetheless say that it’s unattainable to cowl the entire border with troopers.
Possibly. However possibly not.
Or even when the entire border can’t be lined with a soldier each 10 meters, possibly it may be lined with a soldier each 100 meters or 500 meters, in order that there isn’t a blind spot the place there may be not a human watching. And even as soon as there are guards, if the guards see zero threats for weeks or months at a time, how awake and attentive will they actually be on the one random day down the highway when an actual invasion comes out of nowhere?
It is a continued evident systematic blind spot for the IDF, the place the philosophical method to frame safety stays unchanged in some ways from the previous, and the primary distinction is ahead safety zones and having the varied enemies on the run. However when the struggle ends – and it’ll finish sometime – and if and when Israel wants to surrender parts of its safety zones, or even when it doesn’t, having inadequate troopers on the border after October 7 is unconscionable.
A brand new inflated feeling of supremacy
One of many largest issues earlier than October 7 was the IDF’s feeling of comparative supremacy towards Hamas.
October 7 cured that feeling – however, remarkably, just for a short while.
After the IDF clobbered Hamas in northern Gaza in fall 2023 and positively by the point Hamas’s different strongest forces in Khan Yunis had been routed in early 2024, the navy now not took Hamas critically.
Since August 2024, Hamas has not even had a capability to assemble giant forces to struggle the IDF. In Could of this yr, the IDF celebrated certainly one of its largest victories in a couple of yr – beating a measly 30 Hamas fighters in Beit Hanun who had been preventing as a coordinated guerrilla power.
How and why ought to the IDF take Hamas critically if 95% of its already a lot decreased remaining fighters mainly spend all of their time hiding?
And so, paradoxically, the IDF now has a fair higher superiority advanced relating to Hamas than it did earlier than October 7.
As soon as the struggle is over and Hamas bides its time quietly to permit Israel to get used to a brand new spherical of calm tranquility, this can depart the IDF extra open than ever to groupthink that Hamas can’t current a menace – and to being shocked when it does once more.
In all, Israel is in a a lot better place to defend itself from invasion than it was two years in the past. However contemplating how traumatic Hamas’s October 7 bloodbath was, Israel should still be far much less ready than one would have anticipated.
