From New York Times, I'm Michael Bobarrow. This is The Daily. In the weeks since Hamas carried out a devastating terror attack inside of Israel. My colleague, Ronan Bergman, has been investigating what warnings Israel missed beforehand. Today, the story of one of those warnings. It's Monday, December fourth.

Ronan, this is your first time.

On The Daily, and you bring a.

Unique expertise.

That I'd like you to.

Describe for just a moment because you have been covering the Israeli military.

And its.

Intelligence services for decades.

And you've gotten to know those worlds extremely well.

Israel is the country that I think is influenced by its intelligence service more than any other country in the Western world.

It.

Always had the biggest intelligence community per capita, and today it's the second biggest intelligence community in total number after the US.

Just.

Think of.

The- The size difference of those countries, right?

Yeah. So Israeli security strategy is based on the intelligence services to supply a pre-alert to any enemy intent to launch pre-emptive strike on Israel, to supply with viable, real-time intelligence what are the intents and the capabilities of the enemy. And it's vast, it takes massive resources, and it has a lot of secrets. Every day they create unbelievable stories. Not all of them, by the way, are glorifying them. Sometimes the Israeli James Bond looks more like Inspector Kluso, but it's always interesting and it's always very consequential. There's no historical turn, there's no historical event, there's no major decision-making process in the history of Israel that the intelligence community didn't have a massive important imprint, if not the decisive role in that. This is my professional task. I'm trying, at least to give the reads of The New York Times, a better understanding of how this secret realm is so consequential on everything we see in the real world.

Right. In your capacity as a journalist deeply wired into the Israeli military and that unprecedented intelligence apparatus that you just described, you, of course, end up spending a lot of time after October seventh trying to understand how Israel's government failed to anticipate that attack or really even.

Blunt it.

It's always been in my head this question that didn't leave, that didn't stop bothering me. How could this happen? What I was getting at the beginning when I was speaking with people, even in the first evening, with sources, with officials throughout the intelligence community and the defense establishment, they all said, We had no idea. They all said there was nothing. Just a total 100% shocking surprise from zero to 100 in a second with no clue, nothing that would suggest that this is coming.

Were you skeptical of that, Ronan?

I was a little bit skeptical in this, I would say, spontaneous and very fast admitted into something that an intelligence officer would not like to admit, which means that the coverage, the intelligence coverage, human intelligence, signal intelligence, cyber, and all the rest just failed completely. Nothing. The channels were empty. I thought either it's courageous, people with Cajones who say, We failed. But because I heard this from multiple, multiple directions, I thought that's a little bit odd. Maybe some people are courageous and maybe some people are very fast to admit something that is very embarrassing.

But.

In order to hide to cover up on a much darker truth. I started to speak with sources, and then I think it was two days after the war began, when a source said, Listen, 8200, that's the Israeli equivalent to the NSA or the British GCHQ, the Cyber and Signal, signal intelligence unit, which is the biggest single unit in the Israeli Defense establishment, and also one who takes the best brains, the best youth when they are being drafted to the military. They said 8200 long ago stopped or diminished its dealing with tactical communication of Hamas. But then after a few days, I get another source who says this is not even important because the real story is not about what they didn't know, not about the lack of coverage, tactical or strategic, whatever. It's about what they knew. There was the sources, there was something big in the pipeline. And he suggests to say they knew something about how this is going to happen, but the source was vague. The source was evasive, which of course, makes me a little bit mad. He said, I know this is not what you want to get, and maybe one day I'll tell you.

I said, I told the source, Listen, if there's a dark secret in A200, in our days, this will not remain a secret for a long time. Then I start hearing something that's codenamed or named the email thread with the Southern Command.

People start describing something to you as the email thread of the Southern Command.

Yes. I start hearing stories that there's a woman who alerted.

Who.

Got it right. Then I got access to the email thread.

In summary, what does it tell you?

It tells me that there is a veteran professional analyst that is sitting in an intelligence base in the south. This space is in charge of the intelligence collection from Gaza. It's a massive base. This woman is studying the battle techniques of Hamas. And so in July 6 of this year, she writes the first email in that thread where she is describing a military drill that Hamas was running in the center of Gaza City with two platoons. And she starts and say they were making this military exercise and it was madness. And she is describing the drill. The drill, the exerciseair-to-air operations, including taking down a helicopter, they are imitating the possibility. They are taking our Israeli helicopter, they are taking down Israeli fighter jet. They cross the border into Israel. They raid a kibbutz. They put the flag on the synagogue of the kibbutz, and then they raid some military academy. They kill all the cadets. Of course, there are a lot of people playing dead there. From early dawn until the night, they were doing it with bigger forces, big capability. Generally, she says, I never saw anything like that. It was madness. Now, madness is not usually a word that you use in those usually very dry intelligence reports.

She said that was shigaono, teruf in Hebrew, madness or crazy. It also had a sense of almost, I would say, she was impressed from those military capabilities. At the end of this report, she adds, here is another small edition. One of the commandos was speaking over the radio with another one, and he was using a quote from the Quran, from Surat Al-Madiya, which is this specific chapter. The quote was, Whoever passes this gate and surprising the other side will get the blessing of Allah. And she says, referring to the addresses of the email, you remember this quote? This is the same quote that is at the very beginning of Jerry Cawal.

I just want to pause for a moment, Ronan. In the days after October seventh, you end up obtaining these highly sensitive internal emails in which this analyst has picked up on an elaborate drill in which members of Hamas very much seem to be planning some attack. In communicating this drill to the people she works with, this analyst invokes a quote from one of the commandos, uses this phrase, Jerico Wall. It seems like that phrase might mean something. What do you end up coming to understand it means?

She uses that twice, and it's clear that it's not physically the walls of Jerico, which is an ancient and modern city. In the Bible, the Israelis came and surrounded that Jerico and toppled its walls and conquered the city. So it's clearly a code name. And she referenced to that code name and says, What we see in that drill is in complete overlap with Jerico Wall.

So suddenly you want to know what on earth is Jericol Wall?

Yes. I start asking around, when you say Jerico Wall, say, Oh, the booklet. I hear this a lot. Oh, the booklet. You mean the booklet. In a certain point in a certain military facility, I was able to get and read the booklet, Jerico Wall.

What is it?

It's a shocking document. It's the last updated Hamas plan to attack Israel. It was obtained by Israeli intelligence after massive effort during 2022, more than a year ago, and it's about 40 pages. I saw the translation to Hebrew. This was the one that was shared with many seniors and analysts inside the Israeli intelligence. I said, It's shocking because the first thing you realize is the depth of intelligence that Hamas was able to gather on Israel.

What?

The purpose of Jerica Wall is to take down the Gaza division. Gaza Division is the division is the division that is protecting the Israeli gas and border. They control a massive fence which is erected above ground and underground to stop the tunnels, but it's also fortified with many cameras and communication hubs. I see all the details, the secret details of how this works, how many people, where they sit, where is the headquarters, where are the regional Brigades, where are the towers with the machine guns? Where are the scouts watching them and operating them? You see everything into how the front is built and protected.

In the hands of Hamas, in this booklet that Hamas has written in a plan for attacking Israel.

But they take the intelligence and they translate that into a detailed attack plan that describes how to attack the border. First, to have a massive bombardment with motors, rockets, and missiles on Israel to create diversion. They have a detailed plan how to neutralize the cameras, the communication hub using drones, using paraglides. Then they have raiding forces that are tasked to break the fence in 60 different places. Wow.

And of course, everything you are describing from this plan is precisely what happens on October seventh. That plan becomes a reality.

Nobody could believe that this could happen, but it did. To the details, this is the master plan for what happened on October seventh.

Right. I want to return to that analyst you mentioned earlier, because she clearly does take this report seriously. She warns in an email that she thinks that a drill that she's watching happening in Gaza is basically a dry run for the Jerico Wall Plan that she has read. And so what happens when she flags this to the people around her?

So first, everybody are complimenting her for the detailed job that she is doing because I'm just giving you the gist, but this is a long memo with very detailed, meticulous work. And then the intelligence chief of the Gaza division, he says, Compliments, compliments, intelligence gold, but we need to keep that in proportion. We need to differentiate between what they do for show-off and what are they really able to do. Because the scenario he says to the analysts, the scenario that you described at the beginning of this email, conquering the kibbutz, putting the flag, this is imaginative. He challenges her reading into the current, meaning in July, current Hamas capabilities. And he says, No, they can do this on dry when there is no enemies or no Israelis, when they are not actually firing. But this is for show-off. But she is not shy and she is reacting. She says, This is not imaginative.

This.

Is not something that they are hoping to do. This is something they want to do and capable of doing. Then she says something which is I think maybe the most important. She says, This is a plan for invasion, not a plan for a raid. Because the whole terminology of everybody, even the unit that is in charge was raid. Raid, small scale, two platoons crossing the border. She says, This is a preparation for war, and it can happen.

The analysts colleague, who's a very important figure in keeping Israel safe from Gaza, he basically says to this analyst, I think you're wrong. This isn't a drill for a real-life attack. Hamas can't do what you think they can do. Thank you for your work. It's very impressive. But your worries are misplaced. The analyst comes back and says, No, you are wrong. They can do this. This isn't for show. You should be very worried about this. But ultimately, his view carries the day.

His view carries the day because this was the common wisdom. She was going against the stream. She was saying something together with two of colleagues from her base that supported her in the exchange, she was saying, Everything you, everybody else, believe about Jerica Wall is wrong, Jerica Wall is for real. And it's about what Hamas is capable of doing now. We'll be right back.

Rowan, help us understand why no one took these warnings from this analyst seriously, and ultimately why nobody who read the Jerica Wall blueprint behaved in a way that might have stopped this attack.

The intelligence blunder has three parts. First of all, a total misreading of Hamas mindset, or maybe be more precise, what was going in the head of Yik Yassin, who are the leader of Hamas?

In Gaza, right?

In Hamas, right? They know him for a long time. Twenty-two years he spent in Israeli prison. It's not a new guy. They knew that there is a struggle in Hamas. One part wants to be a ruler of a state that it's theirs. If you are governing a state, you need to take care of the water, of the electricity, of the sewage, of the health. You cannot afford yourself to be in all-out war with Israel because then you cannot supply those services. The other side of Hamas was about a permanent status of war.

Right. Israel believed that Sinwar was ultimately starting to lean towards governance.

And.

Away from war.

Yes. Israel believed that this is going towards a good place. Five days before the invasion, the national security advisor for Prime Minister, Netanyahu, someone called Sachi Hanegi gave an interview to military radio where he said, Hamas is totally deterred. They learned the lesson from the previous round of hostilities this May 21. They understand the price of defiance. They don't want that. And it's all going towards the direction of calm period.

So you're describing a misunderstanding or underestimating of Hamas intent?

Of Sinuaar intent, Sinoar and his buddies, the people around him in Gaza, he took a decision. This is about intents.

Well, what else explains this failure to heed the warnings of this Jerica Wall report beyond misunderstanding Sinoar's intent?

Professional intelligence analysts will make a clear distinction between assessing intent and assessing capabilities. So if you fail one, the other will have a safety button. But here, I think they were influenced by the understanding that Sinoar is not going towards war, is not planning an all-out attack against Israel. And so maybe subconsciously, they didn't understand how important is the military buildup. Now, some of this was just deception. For example, Hamas did not do a full exercise of all the fighting forces. There was no one incident, many, many military drills, but there was no single event that Israel could see all the different platoons together standing.

You're saying the capacity that Israel did see, they underestimated it because they had allowed their views of that capacity to be so colored by their determination that Sinwa that Hamas was not in this moment a threat. Their views of intent bled over into their views of capacity.

Yes. Also just maybe poor intelligence, a poor assessment, poor professional understanding. In November of '22, Israeli Southern Command is writing a memo. They say Hamas have between 2,000 and 3,000 Nuchba, Commando, gunmen trained and ready to be deployed. However, Hamas is capable of deploying only 70. Okay, 70 is not that bad.

It.

Dictates a total different set of preparation and defenses from Israel.

On top of everything you're describing so far, Ronan, a misunderstanding of intent, a misunderstanding of capacity, I'm curious how much Israel also just misunderstood its own security system. Israel spoke so frequently about this fence, which turned out wasn't impregnable.

The fence was created as a lesson from a round of hostilities in 2014 when Israel discovered that Hamas is digging tunnels from Gaza into Israel. Now, those are very hard to detect, very hard to destroy. Israel started to think of how technology can solve that. Six years later, they finished building this massive barrier that had also above ground wall and underground, up to 100 meters deep, with sensors, with explosives. In practice, it solved the problem of the tunnels.

Hamas was not able to continue with this anymore at all. But it forced Hamas to be smarter. It forced Hamas to work on an open field and plan how they will execute Jerica Wall above ground. Nobody in Israel believed that this can be open. If it's open, then we don't need to detect them. We have all those computers and telescopes and scouts and cameras. Right, we'll see it. Yeah, we'll see it. People of the military got completely enchanted by the wall. In time, they allocated fewer and fewer forces to the Southern Front. Those forces were less and less alert because it's all about technology.

In short, you're saying Israel became complacent.

The forces on the border were not sharp, were not ready because they said that defense is invisible. You see the videos from the day of the invasion, you see how easy it was for Hamas to break defense, and you don't understand the gap between invisible and just one bulldozer. Just take it out.

What.

Would.

Have happened in a world where the Jerica Wall report was taken much more seriously, had been distributed much more widely, and more and more people in the military and in the government took the view of this analyst, for example? How easily could Israel have prepared for and prevented the ultimate October seventh attack if they had decided that report, that plan was for real?

The other day, someone very high-rank official in the Southern Front, he calls me and he asked me to come to see him privately. I understand it's something very secret. When I come and see him, he says, Do you know what is Jericawal?

I said.

Well, as it happens, I know.

Because you hadn't yet published your investigation.

Yeah. He said, I didn't know until yesterday. He didn't know. I said, Okay, what would you do if you knew? He says, There are two options here. Either you deem the force of Hamas at this moment is too risky to Israel, and then you go to preemptive surprise attack against Hamas to take them down. But also acknowledging we both said this immediately and simultaneously, there was no government, no Prime Minister, no public that would support such a ground invasion before October 7. So the other option is to prepare in case that happens. Some steps are easy, put landmines behind the fence, and some are by far more significant. So instead of four battalions, Israel would need to have throughout the year 4-5 Brigades. This is massive. We're talking about 20,000 troops. But there's no other way. Because if you think that there is a threat, if they have the capability, you don't need even to think about the intent. None of that happened. They did not put landmines, they did not enlarge the forces because they didn't think it's real.

I have to ask, what has been the reaction to your reporting within Israel? The Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said there will be a moment to account for his government's failings to prevent October seventh, when the war is over. Is what you have found here, the existence of this report and the failure to take it seriously, is that going to mean that when that accounting comes, it's going to be devastating, especially for him.

Benjamin Netanyahu is occupied mainly with one thing to put all the blame on the shoulders of the intelligence and the military. Now, note that they didn't fail. They did. Their leaders took responsibility. They said, We failed. We will conclude the necessary lessons after the war, which is in Hebrew, that means that they will resign. But first they said, We need to fight. Benjamin Netanyahu said, It's not me, it's them here. They took responsibility. And in any case, we don't investigate now. Now, if there is a true investigation after the war, what we discussed now, this is going to be one of the main chapters of the investigation panel.

Right. How could it not be? No doubt. I was in a meeting where a senior New York Times editor asked a hiring official if there's a moment he regrets in hindsight that he could do something else. And that person said, We will all have a lifetime to think about that.

So we're talking about.

High-level officials, but I'm curious how much.

This.

Attack and the idea that it was preventable, how.

That has changed how everyday Israelis view this enormous military intelligence apparatus that.

We have been.

Talking about here that was.

Supposed to protect them?

I think most Israelis didn't need the New York Times to know that intelligence failed because the failure is just all over the defense establishment. The failure to prevent and then when it happens to rush the forces and save those people that are being butchered was clear from the first evening. And it writes exactly into the reasons why Israel was established in the first place. The promise that every Jew that comes to Israel will be protected was one of the main cause of the establishment, the DNA of every Israeli. That contract between the state and the Jewish people was brutally violated. When I was a kid and basically throughout my life, everyone always complained about the government that it's dysfunctional and that it's corrupt. But everybody were also living under the assumption that whatever the government does, the defense establishment is a different island, it's a different universe. They might fail from time to time, but at the end of the day, they will supply the necessary security that would prevent any enemy to reach Israeli territory. That feeling of confidence was hammered. People in Tel Aviv now are afraid to leave their houses. This intelligence blunder will hunt the Israeli future for many, many years.

Well, Ronan, thank.

You very much. We appreciate it.

Thank you, Michael. Pleasure to be with you.

Over the weekend, Israel appeared to set the stage for a ground invasion of Southern Gaza by bombarding the region with airstrikes and ordering residents of several towns there to leave their homes. In remarks to reporters, a spokesman for the Israeli.

Military.

Sought to dispel the idea that Israel's goal of destroying Hamas could be accomplished in a short period of time. The spokesman described a quote-long war that is not bound by time. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.

On this vote, the yeses are 311.

The nays are 114. Two-thirds voting in the affirmative, the resolution is adopted.

The chair announced this to the House that in light of the expulsion of the gentleman from New.

York, Mr.

Santos, the whole number of the.

House.

Is now 434.

The expulsion of Republican congressman George Santos of New York on Friday over serial fabrications and allegations of theft from his own campaign has touched off an intense battle to replace him. The Times reports that the governor of New York is expected to schedule a special election to fill Santos's seating February. An election likely to become one of the most high profile, competitive, and expensive off-year races in decades. Santos's former district on Long Island is politically moderate, and both Republicans and Democrats see it as a major electoral prize in a closely divided House. Today's episode was produced by Rachel Quester, Muj Zadi, Carlos Prietow, and Stella Tan. It was edited by Patricia Willens and Michael Benoît. Contains original music by Mary Loizono, Diane Wang, and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Runberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bobarrow. See you tomorrow.