The Take: How an Israeli ‘intelligence failure’ informed the war on Gaza

Israeli tanks take up position near Israel's border with the Gaza
A line of heavy armoured personnel carriers [APCs] at an area along the border with Gaza, southern Israel, 13 October 2023 [Atef Safadi/EPA-EFE]

Israel’s invasion of Gaza appears set to begin. It’s an invasion that the military has been preparing for since October 7, when Hamas launched an unprecedented attack. That attack was described as a massive failure for a country touted to have some of the best intelligence in the world. So where was that Israeli intelligence? And how did that same intelligence inform Israel’s decision to invade Gaza now?

In this episode: 

  • Youmna ElSayed (@YoumnaElSayed17), Al Jazeera Gaza correspondent
  • Oren Ziv (@OrenZiv_), Journalist and photographer for +972 magazine
  • Hugh Lovatt (@h_lovatt), Senior Policy Fellow, European Council on Foreign Relations
  • Mohannad Sabry (@mmsabry), Journalist and Author of Sinai: Egypt’s Linchpin, Gaza’s Lifeline, Israel’s Nightmare
  • Antony Loewenstein (@antloewenstein), Author of The Palestine Laboratory

Episode credits:

This episode was produced by Amy Walters with David Enders, Ashish Malhotra, and Kevin Hirten, in for our host Malika Bilal. Farhinisa Campana fact-checked this episode.

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our lead of audience development and engagement is Aya Elmileik and Adam Abou-Gad is our engagement producer.

Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer, and Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.

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Source: Al Jazeera