According to the New York Times, Israel obtained Hamas's battle plan for October seventh more than a year in advance. I've seen some of the documents myself, the ones I saw were dated October 2022. The Times points out that the Hamas documents that they saw are shockingly close to reality. They called for a barrage of rockets at the outset of the attack. Hamas did that. They called for breaking through the wall. Hamas did that. They called for entering via paraglider. Hamas did that. They called for entering via motorcycle. Hamas did that. Mark, do you know why this document was dismissed?

Well, it's clear there was an amazing mishap, a failure. There's no excuses for it. And we have to look into this. We paid for our mistakes on October seventh in blood, in the blood of 1,200 Israelis who were murdered, and another 240 that were kidnapped and taken to Gaza. So we have to take this very seriously. We can't accept such a failure. We pride ourselves as Israelis for having excellent intelligence services. In this case, maybe the information there, it wasn't understood. It didn't go up the chain like it should have. We have to investigate that. We have to find out exactly what happened. Fifty years ago, Aaron, there was a similar colossal intelligence failure when we were attacked in 1973 on the Yom Kippur War from the south by Egypt, from the north by Syria. We were then taken by surprise. After that, we had a commission of inquiry and lessons were learned, and it was an important process for Israel. And we'll probably do the same thing now. I'm sure when this war is over, we have to look very carefully at what happened, where was the information, why wasn't it understood, who is responsible?

In July, a veteran, I'm sorry, Israeli intelligence analyst said that Hamas had conducted an intense, day-long training exercise. An analyst said, This appears similar to what was outlined in the blueprint. Now, the analyst, we understand, works for Unit 8200, which is Israel's Signals Intelligence Agency, went ahead and warned higher ups. And according to encrypted emails reviewed by The New York Times, two things then happened. One, Mark, is that a Colonel in the Gaza division brushed off the concerns. And two is that veteran analysts commented, and I quote, I utterly refute that the scenario is imaginary. You can almost hear the frustration in the words that that analyst chose to use. Mark, I'm curious as to what you think as to why there was such a disbelief? When Israel at that point had the battle plans and then visual proof of the plans being practiced, why was there still such disbelief?

So all these questions need to be looked at seriously and professionally and objectively, and we'll do that. It's our obligation. Ultimately, Israel will continue to live in a challenging neighborhood, some would even say a dangerous neighborhood. Therefore it's our obligation that our intelligence services have to be good. And if there are failures, we have to understand where the failures happened and why they happened.

So was the Prime Minister, Netanyahu, aware of the Hamas document?

I'm not aware that he was... I don't know that he was aware. He said like everyone else that when there are investigations after this war, exactly what happened, he'll, of course, be there to answer questions and tell exactly what he was given and what he wasn't given.

But at this point, you and he haven't even had a conversation as to whether he was aware of these documents the New York Times reporting about.

Not this specific document, but we have had conversations on this general level. But once again, these discussions we need to discuss at the right time, and the right time will be after this war at the moment. I think all of Israel is focused on winning this war. We have to win this war against Hamas so that October seventh can never happen again.