What went wrong at the Nahal Oz IDF base on October 7, 2023?
Everything.
More on this unparalleled disaster — soldiers without weapons, soldiers without weapons training, tanks in the wrong places, commanders taking key equipment off-base, Hamas having acquired total information about the IDF base at Nahal Oz from social media posts by the soldiers themselves, and so much else gone wrong — can be found in the minute-by-minute account of the attack on Nahal Oz IDF base here: “Damning IDF probe: Social media leaks enabled Hamas raid on Nahal Oz,” by Yonah Jeremy Bob, Jerusalem Post, March
IDF soldiers left so many markers on social media that Hamas invaders on October 7 had a complete breakdown of nearly every unit, sub-unit, and building within the Nahal Oz IDF base when they overwhelmed it, killed 53 soldiers, and took 10 hostage on October 7, 2023.
16 of those killed were female field observers, many killed when Hamas burned the building they were in, and several of the hostages were among the recently released female hostages as part of the January 19 ceasefire. Two officers and five soldiers did escape the burning situation room by breaking a bathroom window and sneaking out.
So complete were the social media descriptions, often simply from photos that soldiers snapped next to different buildings on their first or last day in a position, that the IDF official probe of the battle has concluded that Hamas did not need a single spy to pull off its highly specific infiltration plan.
To that extent, interrogations of Hamas prisoners and the seizure of other physical Hamas items which the IDF found while invading Gaza led to Hamas being able to build a model of portions of the base to practice its invasion, just like Israeli special forces sometimes do pre-operation.
This allowed Hamas to greatly improve its tactical planning for invading Nahal Oz, far beyond even the already significant analysis it had performed in the 2021-2022 Walls of Jericho plans, being able to time exactly how long it would take certain IDF reinforcements to arrive, and which soldiers would be stationed where in the early and secondary stages of the invasion….
This report comes as such a shock to those of us who are so used to singing the praises of the IDF, assuming it to always be able to defeat the enemy whatever the odds, the way that the IDF beat back the five Arab armies that invaded simultaneously on May 15, 1948, and destroyed the Egyptian Air Force on June 5, 1967, which allowed the IDF to simultaneously defeat the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian forces in what became known as the Six-Day War, and recovered from a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria in 1973 to turn the tide of the Yom Kippur War, even at the end of the war being poised to destroy Egypt’s Third Army, that had been surrounded by Sharon’s forces on the western side of the Suez Canal. The catastrophe at the Nahal Oz base should result in some demotions. Who decided, for example, not to give weapons to every soldier at the base, or thought it acceptable to station soldiers right on the border with Gaza who had no combat training? Who failed to transmit warnings from the female soldiers at their lookout stations about breaches in the fences?
And now that the IDF realizes just how much information Hamas garnered from the soldiers’ social media posts — including possessing photographs of every corner of the Nahal Oz base that the soldiers themselves had posted — it will surely ban the use of all personal phones on every IDF base. That’s a start. The old adage still holds. Loose lips sink ships.
40 rounds says
It’s called complacency and many a battle was lost due to this. You should never be “astonished” that your enemy has the balls to attack you
somehistory says
Some years ago, I read a report of some online activity which helps criminals find out things very easily which then helps them commit various crimes.
Social media….people tell too much. If a person posts photos of family members, predators can then look for ways to get to young family members. Just telling what kind of weather on a given day can point to a particular area, if a vacation is planned, or someone is going to be away for other reasons. Every little bit of info provided for family or friends, can be combined/compiled for use by the criminal element.
This kind of thing from soldiers, innocent information, in the wrong hands, helped the mozlum ghouls in their evil attack.
Hopefully others have learned and this won’t be repeated. Because the mozlums are not done yet.
PRCS USN (ret) says
Loose lips sink ships.
Mo says
Unbelievable! I’ve become convinced that social media is one of the worst things ever invented.
Billy says
Islam is a Murderous, Criminal Enterprise where Terrorist Muslims are the Soldiers of Allah and the Peaceful Muslims are the Support Staff of the Soldiers by providing funding, teaching, and support for the Terrorist Muslims as taught in the Quran. This is Islam.
Islam, a Criminal Enterprise, and its Muslims perpetually fund, promote, and practice ideological subversion, propaganda, bigotry, discrimination, deceit, supremacy, segregation, hatred, violence, and terrorism as taught in Islamic Law and in Islam’s Quran, and Muslim actions should be legally challenged with a multi-faceted force of Western Laws like Muslims wield against Americans and Westerners. Like a Foreign Terrorist Organization(FTO) designated by the USA Secretary of State, Islam is a MUSLIM TERRORIST ORGANIZATION(MTO) fighting against Non-Muslims and NOT A PEACEFUL religion under Western Law because Islam funds, teaches, and promotes a Terrorist Criminal Organization with Muslims as Terrorists for Allah. Under Islam and Islamic Law, Muslims have the legal right to terrorize Non-Muslims because neglecting this DIVINE DUTY is a Crime against Allah; Jihad means warfare against Non-Muslims to ESTABLISH ISLAM’S RELIGION(Quran 3:151; 9:29; Muslim Law Manual – “Reliance of the Traveller”, o9.0 and more). More specifically, Islam, a terroristic way of life, is a Muslim Terrorist Ideology and Murderous, Criminal Enterprise of intolerance, continuous war, discrimination, segregation, supremacy, genocide, polygamy, propaganda, deceit, hatred, incitement, sedition, rape, terrorism, and violence against all Non-Muslims as taught in the Quran(Quran 2:216; 4:65,89,95; 5:14; 8:12,39,74; 9:5,21,29,36, 41,49,88,111,123; 21:92; 49:15 and more).
Hillel48 says
Oct 6 1973 was not much different. Dayan called the troops off the border for the Yom Kippur holiday. How did the Egyptians and the Syrians know? Was it because Kissinger wanted it to happen to give the Arabs a small win and boost to their ego so they would negotiate to move into the US sphere of influence. Oct 7 was clearly a set up so that the two state solution, which Trump cruelled in his first term, could be resurrected by Blinken and leave a lasting legacy for crooked Biden and the Demorats..
Peter WF says
I am sure I read somewhere that some Israelis lived near the Gaza border to show how peaceful the Gazans were. What is documented here is how mistaken these people were.
1) Sometimes it takes a lot of pain to learn something.
2) How many years will it take before the report above is repeated? That is, the lesson of history is forgotten?
cornelius says
thanks Hugh….for this kind of investigation. We’re all wondering how the Israelis were caught so unprepared. You’re effectively filling in the details.
In the end, the failures were not about capabilities, they were about hubris & priorities. Just like in ’73, when all the markers were there but the Israelis refused to believe that Sadat would arrack out of pure over-confidence….right up until the canal was breached, so it was in October 2023. Nation states and individuals alike can and should learn an important lesson from this failure. Hubris can be fatal.
Phillip Kaufman says
Arrogance of the on-site and senior staff all the way to the military top — and especially in Intelligence officer corp and senior staff. They should all be cashiered and punished. Completely warned and avoidable.
dumbledoresarmy says
The truly miraculous thing is that the damage done, as a result of these failures at upper echelons of the society, was not much, much worse…
The attack from all sides – that Hamas had hoped to precipitate – did not occur (e.g. Hezbollah stayed put); and many, many ordinary Israelis stepped up to the plate in extraordinary ways… many people (including the many semi-secular young Israelis at the Nova dance party) rescued each other. Many, many, many more people might have been murdered by the jihadis.. but were NOT.
There was one young man who saved the lives of many by catching and tossing back no fewer than SEVEN grenades thrown at the shelter behind him, by Hamasniks. The eighth killed him.. but not the other people.
The mandatory basic army training undergone by the majority of Israelis stood them in good stead, even though the standing army was caught by surprise. When a couple of young soldiers in a tank reached the scene of the Nova massacre, but were killed by jihadis, two other young men found their way to the tank (the jihadis themselves had moved on) and used it as a sort of ‘fort’, rallying escaping partygoers and fending off attack by jihadi gangsters, until army reinforcements arrived; fleeing partygoers who reached the tank were told, “If you can fight, fight; if you can heal (i.e. if you have first-aid training) look after the wounded; if you can do neither.. PRAY!!”
One hopes that the bitter lessons learnt on October 7 2023 will result in useful changes at every level… beginning with genuine military preparedness in EVERY Israeli village, suburb and household.. NO aspect of which should be made public, none of which should be talked about ANYWHERE. (If you are preparing to shatteringly crush any future jihadi assaults not only at ‘national’ but at local level, household by household, town by town, then you do NOT allow the mohammedans to know ANYTHING that will allow them to repeat what they did on October 7th).
It does seem that many in Israel who were dreadfully naive about Islam and Muslims and Jihad, have been shocked awake. One hopes, enough of them to make a difference.
And to be bluntly realistic, every mohammedan has to be viewed as a likely ‘fifth columnist/ spy’….NO ‘guest workers’. Don’t let them in.. because far too many were ‘mapping the terrain’ of those villages and homes in southern Israel, and even as they smiled and drank mint tea they were making plans for the horrific evil that they would perpetrate upon the Jewish people who foolishly let them into their villages and homes.
Incidentally: just how MANy Mohammedans, all over the western world and beyond it, are doing EXACTLY the same as those who spied on and mapped those Israeli villages? – infiltrating and subverting, smiling and lying, whilst dreaming giddy dreams of rapine, plunder, and torture-murder?? “We smile at some people, while our hearts hate them?”
Siddi Nasrani says
Poem, ” The snake 🐍by Al Green.
On her way to work one morning
Down the path alongside the lake
A tender-hearted woman saw a poor half-frozen snake
His pretty colored skin had been all frosted with the dew
“Oh well,” she cried, “I’ll take you in and I’ll take care of you”
“Take me in oh tender woman
Take me in, for heaven’s sake
Take me in oh tender woman,” sighed the snake
She wrapped him up all cozy in a curvature of silk
And then laid him by the fireside with some honey and some milk
Now she hurried home from work that night as soon as she arrived
She found that pretty snake she’d taken in had been revived
“Take me in, oh tender woman
Take me in, for heaven’s sake
Take me in oh tender woman,” sighed the snake
Now she clutched him to her bosom, “You’re so beautiful,” she cried
“But if I hadn’t brought you in by now you might have died”
Now she stroked his pretty skin and then she kissed and held him tight
But instead of saying thanks, that snake gave her a vicious bite
“Take me in, oh tender woman
Take me in, for heaven’s sake
Take me in oh tender woman,” sighed the snake
“I saved you,” cried that woman
“And you’ve bit me even, why?
You know your bite is poisonous and now I’m going to die”
“Oh shut up, silly woman,” said the reptile with a grin
“You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in
“Take me in, oh tender woman
Take me in, for heaven’s sake
Take me in oh tender woman,” sighed the snake