An angry and accusatory press. Launched on Saturday October 7 by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” violently surprised the population and the Israeli army. More than 700 Israelis were killed and 2,150 injured, according to a new army report released Monday morning. Seeking to regain control, Israeli forces struck more than 500 targets and launched a siege in the Gaza Strip. Responsibility for this rout (“meḥdal” in Hebrew), similar to that of the Yom Kippur War of October 7, 1973 and its 3,000 deaths, is attributed by the press to the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Many journalists attack the government which did not react quickly enough to protect civilians. In Ha’Aretz, Yossi Verter looks back on the images and videos that spread across the Internet and social networks in the hours following the first attacks. “It is these hundreds of deaths and these traumatic images which show armed Hamas terrorists moving as calmly as possible, on motor vehicles or on foot, and shooting at everything that moves in the heart of Israeli territory. For several hours, civilians of the western Negev were abandoned to their fate and around a hundred of them were kidnapped and exfiltrated into the Gaza Strip, in the absence of any military or police force.”
Criticism of the state of Israeli intelligence
The result of unpreparedness, according to other newspapers which do not hesitate to criticize the state of Israeli intelligence which has failed in its security mission. In everyday life Israel Hayom, Yoav Limor pulls no punches. “All this escaped Israeli intelligence, which knew nothing about it,” he writes. “In this respect, it is perhaps even more serious than the failure of 1973. Israel is today much stronger in terms of intelligence and operationally, especially against a weak and constrained enemy like Hamas. It should not suffer such a tactical and strategic surprise.”
And Ben Caspit to abound in Maariv : “The fact that he [le Hamas, NDLR] managed to surprise the best and most experienced intelligence services in the world, the fact that he managed to control the event for long hours, will not soon be erased from the minds of the actors in the region. “
The failure of a policy
There are numerous criticisms in the press of the policy put in place by Netanyahu. In The Times of Israeljournalist Tal Schneider believes that since 2014, governments led by Netanyahu “have practically turned a blind eye to the incendiary balloons and rocket attacks coming from Gaza.”
He explains this by the fact that “for years, different governments adopted an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, bringing to its knees the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas, while taking steps that strengthened the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.”
For his part, Avi Issaacharoff wrote on the Ynet website that “the deception was perfect.” He added: “All parties, the Netanyahu governments, wanted to believe that Hamas had become an organ with which to do business and perhaps even strengthen it at the expense of the Palestinian Authority and Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas , Editor’s note). This is the sad reality that the Israeli public must recognize. It is the reality and it is time for change.”
Towards an emergency government?
In this context of strong tensions, could the Israeli Prime Minister be dismissed in the face of his supposed responsibilities in the 2023 “meḥdal”? Not so sure, according to Israeli editorialists who appear rather divided. If some want to believe it like Nahum Barnea, in Yediot Aharonot, “Saturday evening, Yaïr Lapid (leader of the centrist opposition party Yesh Atid, Editor’s note) proposed to Netanyahu to set up an emergency government made up of Likud [parti national conservateur, NDLR], Yesh Atid and the Mahaneh Mamlakhtit (“State Camp”) of former general Benny Gantz, on the condition that the current government puts judicial reform on the shelf, or even gets rid of its far-right wing. This proposal is a priori reasonable.”
Others consider it unlikely that Netanyahu would accept such a scenario. Separating from supremacist ministers like Bezalel Smotrich (Finance Minister) and Itamar Ben Gvir (National Security Minister) risks seeing the majority Likud trend, led by Justice Minister Yariv Levin, defect and abandon Netanyahu in the face of his legal troubles. But for Yossi Verter, in Ha’Aretz: “Sooner or later, Netanyahu will have to be held accountable.”