Talk about what your team learned about this blueprint and the length of time that Israel had to review these plans and why it wasn't listened to.

Somewhere around along 2022, Israeli intelligence was able to get the plan for the Hamas attack. It was codenamed by Israeli intelligence, the War of Jerico, the Jerico War. And it details in many different details how the attack is going to take place, exactly as it took place more than a year after. This could be an intelligence victory for Israel. But Israeli analysts, some of the seniors of Israeli intelligence saw the plan as more of, they call it, as a compass for the building of the forces, where Hamas wants to be, but not where Hamas is. So while having that plan, they saw this as something that Hamas is far from being capable of doing. They believed that Hamas doesn't have the ability to conduct such a massive operation. We are talking about, according to that plan, to break the fence between Gaza and Israel in 60 different places. Israel believed they could do that maybe in two places. They called for the bombing and destruction of the cameras instantly. The same simultaneously, the beginning of the attack of the cameras, the automatic guns, the communication centers, and then the ramping of the division headquarters, the gas division headquarters that is in charge of protecting the front.

In July of this year, so a year after, an analyst that was reviewing about Hamas military exercises, wrote a letter, an email, an exchange of email, encrypted email. She comes from 8200, the Israeli NSA, the equivalent to the American NSA. She described that trail and she said that she believes that Hamas is narrowing the gap between the wall of Jerico Plan and its real capabilities. There was a pushback from senior, more senior intelligence officers that told her this is an imaginary plan. They cannot do that. Here is the tragedy for Israeli intelligence for Israeli public. Instead of positioning, it's not just an intelligence debate. If Israel, if the Israeli Defense Forces would adopt thisthis plan is something that Hamas can do, even without any connection to the intention of Hamas, the decision to execute. This is something that the analyst couldn't say. She did not push back on the Israeli wisdom at that time, that time meaning three, four months ago, that Hamas doesn't want to go to all in one. But if Israeli defense establishment had the knowledge that Hamas is capable of launching such an attack, that would put a total different size of forces on the border, the outcome could be very different.

Also, according to your reporting, this woman analyst saw an exercise that Hamas undertook a trial run and raised red flags again, saying, This looks very much like the Wall of Jerico plan that we had discussed before. And again, would seem to have been dismissed.

Not just that. She even has, she says, here's an interesting bit of information. The same quote from the Quran, Surat Al-Ma'da, that begins with this detailed plan for action, this detailed plan for attack starts with. It's called for... This is something about Moses, but it is about the surprise entry through a gate. I think it's not a coincidence that Hamas picked this up. The people participating, the Hamas government participating in that drill were using the same quote. The same quote is now part of the emblem of Hamas used in all Hamas publications, statements and videos since.

The attack. As you know, the Israeli government posted online on X last month, Contrary to the false claims, under no circumstances and at no stage was Prime Minister Netanyahu warned of Hamas's war intentions. They went on to say at no point was a warning given to Prime Minister Netanyahu on Hamas's intention to start a war. On the contrary, all the defense officials, including the heads of the intelligence directorate and the Shinbet, assessed that Hamas was deterred. Do you know if the Prime Minister was, in fact, informed? Because it sounds like from your reporting that this document was widely disseminated in intelligence and military circles. Yeah.

We don't know if Prime Minister Netanyahu was presented with this document. We do know, and this comes from previous reporting, that he was born again and again and again and again. And in detail, at least in four different that as throughout the last year, that the members of the so-called axis of resistance, Iran, Hamas, Hezballah, see Israeli weakness, and they might decide to use what they believe a win of opportunity to attack. This document was sent to many, and I think this is a good point for further reporting about who saw.

And.

Who decided to continue with this so-called conception, the ability to believe that Hamas is contained.

Ronan Bergman, it's incredible reporting. Thank you. More now on The Forces at play tonight, joining us, Cinez Alex Markwad and Orn Lieberman, also Axios reporter and CNN political and foreign policy analyst, Barak Ravid, and Ciner, and military analysts, retired Army Lieutenant General Mark Hurling. Brock, first of all, how damning is this report for the Israeli government?

Well, I think this is part of a series of stories that appeared in the Israeli Press over the last week or two weeks, that what happens behind them is a fight between the Israeli intelligence community or parts of it, especially the military intelligence and the political echelon, with each side leaking stuff that are more comfortable to him when it comes to everything that happened in the year before the war. And a lot of people in Israel think that the reason that now we hear about those documents is because it's very comfortable for Benjamin Netanyahu and his people, and they're trying to put those things out in order to build a case for the inquiry committee that most likely is going to be formed on the day after the war.

I mean, Barok, as you know, intelligence officials, military officials have accepted responsibility. Benjamin Netanyahu has not in any form accepted any responsibility for the attack on October seventh, he had very early on, right before the operation in Gaza, he had tweeted out a criticism of the heads of the military and intelligence, and then quickly withdrew that tweet and apologized for that. But it certainly seems like this is something he wants out there.

No doubt. By the way, there was a huge intelligence failure. It's not that it's not true. There was a huge intelligence failure. In one of the emails, this analyst from Israel Signals Intelligence Agency, A200, one of the headlines of one of her emails that was warning from this plan, the headline was death in the kibbutz. How symbolic is that? Several months ago, death in the kibbutz, she wrote. There was a huge intelligence failure, not at her level, but at the higher level, the people were actually making the decisions, and that their job is to actually warn the political echelon of what was going on. But at the same time, Netanyahu did get a lot of other warnings that had to do also with the general situation where Israel's enemies were planning to gang up on it because of the domestic crisis over Netanyahu's judicial overhaul in the months before the war.

Alex, what do you make of this report? How are US officials likely to react?

Well, Anderson, I really do think it goes to this theme that we've been reporting on for quite some time of the underestimation of what Hamas was capable of doing and certainly what they intended to do. You and I have talked about intelligence reports and assessments both on the Israeli and the American side in the days leading up to October seventh, that indicated that Hamas might do something. Now, what that something was expected to be was what we had seen before in previous rounds of fighting that were frankly, rather inconsequential for Israel. That would have been rockets being fired across the border, which then likely would have been intercepted by the Iron Dome, which is exactly what we're seeing on our screen right there. But there was no sense that Hamas would be able to break through the French fence and carry out the types of mass-disease workers that they did. There is acknowledgment and public acknowledgment here in the US from intelligence officials and Biden administration officials that this was purely an Israeli intelligence failure. American intelligence officials are not taking any responsibility for this. They are laying it at the feet of the intelligence apparatus and security apparatus in Israel.

Essentially, the US has been so focused on China and on Russia and Ukraine that they just don't spend a lot of time thinking about Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups. Now, will that change going forward? That remains to be seen. We've certainly seen US intelligence playing a much bigger role during this conflict with drones and other kinds of signals intelligence gathering. But in their minds, this is an Israeli intelligence failure. I think most will tell you that Netanyahu is not expected to survive this, but there's also an expectation that the heads of the intelligence agencies will also roll.

Yeah, there's really going to be a reckoning.