Israel election: Three years after Hamas attacks, Israelis demand accountability

Israel election: Three years after Hamas attacks, Israelis demand accountability

Author, Lucy Williamson

Role, BBC Middle East correspondent

Reporting from, Jerusalem and Kfar Azza

As the skies began to clear on Israel's border with Gaza on Wednesday, people in Kfar Aza silently walked to the armory in the center of the kibbutz to mourn. Because, right there, three years ago on the morning of October 7, just after 7 a.m., Hamas-led attackers killed seven of the community's 14 civil defense personnel.

A total of 64 civilians in this community were killed by Hamas that day, and 19 people were kidnapped.

The pain from those attacks is still vivid here.

But three years later, people can’t help but ask, who else should be held responsible for Israel’s loss of security?

"I need my country to take responsibility," said Inbar Goldstein.

Her brother and niece were killed, and four relatives were kidnapped in Kfar Azza.

The attack on October 7 was the deadliest since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.

About 1,200 people have been killed in southern Israel by gunmen who breached the border fence and attacked local neighborhoods. Another 251 people were taken back to Gaza as hostages.

Three years after the biggest security disaster in Israel's history, there is still no independent national investigation to find out how it happened.

And the man in charge at the time—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—is running again with the same campaign promise: to be stronger and tougher than anyone else in protecting Israel from its enemies.

"No one has investigated the origins (of the attack). It didn't start or end on October 7th — it was a long process of abandonment," Goldstein said.

In addition to Hamas's responsibility for the attack itself, questions are growing within Israel, such as what led to the country's intelligence failures? What messages were delivered to military and political leaders in the lead-up to the attack?

And, how much Netanyahu himself knows about this.

In the previous months, young female soldiers stationed at Gaza border bases monitoring suspicious activities had warned their superiors that someone might be preparing to launch an attack.

Roni Eshel is one of them. She and 14 other members of her unit were killed when gunmen attacked the Nahal Oz base next to Kfar Azza.

"There are so many questions!" said Roni's uncle, Elad Levy. "Did the Egyptians warn the prime minister? What about the Emiratis? Did Netanyahu not ignore other warnings? We need to find out the truth - not just that day, but the year before, and five years before that."

"The truth should be clear," he continued. "If we don't investigate this, it will happen again and again."

Over the past three years, reports have emerged that Netanyahu had received warnings - both from his own security chief and from neighboring countries - which he has denied.

Last month, Israeli newspaper Haaretz published excerpts from a new book claiming that the UAE leader called Netanyahu ten days before the attack to warn him that Hamas was planning a major operation.

Netanyahu's office dismissed the report as a "complete lie" and said he would sue the newspaper.

Amir Ohana, a member of Netanyahu's Likud party, said in a social media video last month that it was "ridiculous" to think Netanyahu might have known about the attack because Yahya Sinwar, the former Hamas leader in Gaza, told only a few people.

He said the Israeli prime minister has since reshaped the Middle East and has not given up, "even though there are calls for him to stop, both inside and outside Israel."

The Israeli prime minister blamed his own security chief for the failure of the Israeli army following the Hamas attack, accusing him of deliberately choosing not to wake him in the hours beforehand.

He claimed that this was due to concerns that the prime minister would order a large-scale deployment of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and further escalate the situation.

"'Oh my God, don't let us wake up the prime minister and then he says: 'Wake up the entire Israel Defense Forces immediately, send out the air force immediately!'" he told Israeli right-wing media channel 14.

"If they had woken me up, this wouldn't have happened," he said, suggesting his response would better protect Israel from attacks.

Yaacov Katz, a journalist and author of several books on Israeli defense, wrote about growing concerns about Hamas activities in the hours before the attack.

In his book, "While Israel Slept," he describes early-morning phone calls between senior military officers and intelligence chiefs, the sudden recall of commanders from leave and the dispatch of elite intelligence units to the border.

He told me that the worst-case scenario they expected was a small, limited incursion by Hamas militants.

"Why did Netanyahu order the IDF to launch a massive pre-emptive strike when all the security chiefs told him it would not come to this? There is no use in waking him up."

But he said Netanyahu also faced other questions about his failure to detect what was happening.

"You are the prime minister, you set the policy," he said.

"You created a set of containment norms and policies that permeate every soldier stationed in the Gaza border watchtowers: contain Hamas, isolate Palestinians, and maintain Hamas's power to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state."

For years, Netanyahu has led a policy of "containing" rather than "confronting" Hamas in Gaza; during this period, the Israeli government allowed Qatar to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Gaza.

A month after the October 7 attack, he told a German newspaper that suggestions that he intended to "strengthen" Hamas were "absolute lies."

"On the contrary, we want to continue weakening Hamas as much as possible. But the money is to avoid a civilian catastrophe - that's the only reason," he told Die Welt newspaper.

Months after the attack, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, the IDF’s chief of staff at the time, publicly apologized for failing to protect his fellow citizens, saying the weight of the incident weighed heavily on him and was etched in his heart.

He subsequently resigned. A number of military commanders were later dismissed, and Israel's domestic intelligence chief also resigned.

However, Netanyahu has so far refused to take any personal responsibility for the attack.

Col Richard Hecht served as the International Spokesperson of the Israel Defense Forces on October 7.

He told me that the refusal of political leaders, including Netanyahu, to take responsibility was part of the reason he resigned six months later.

"It's a disgrace," he stressed to me. "As far as accountability is concerned, I don't think there is a problem within the IDF. This is where it hurts. This is one of the main reasons why relations between the political class and the military have deteriorated."

At a commemoration ceremony in Jerusalem on Monday, the father of a victim killed on October 7 stood up and questioned the prime minister.

"You didn't protect my son, you didn't protect all the people who were killed," he said.

When he was taken away by security guards, he was still saying: "Shame! Shame!"

Three years after the attack, calls for accountability are growing. Activists have filed an application with Israel's Supreme Court asking the government to establish a national commission of inquiry.

Former minister and opposition politician Yizhar Shai was involved in the movement, and his younger son Yaron, a soldier, was killed on October 7.

“As far as October 7 is concerned, we are almost going into this election blindfolded,” he told me at a protest in Tel Aviv last week.

"Our prime minister never gave a detailed, thorough explanation under oath, he should have been asked all the tough questions and had to explain everything."

Netanyahu, who has resisted a national investigation led by Israel's Supreme Court, recently argued that the country's judiciary would be biased against him.

Before calling the general election, his government proposed an alternative - the establishment of a "national commission of inquiry" whose members would be appointed by each political party.

His opponent Gadi Eisenkot's team released a video game called Sleepy Bibi, which tasks players with helping the prime minister evade responsibility, dodge attack warnings and "get to bed safely."

Netanyahu has been portraying himself as Israel's "Mr. Security" for decades. Although Israel experienced the worst security failure in its history during his administration, he still ran again on the same security platform.

Over the past three years, he has focused on waging new wars against Israel’s enemies — Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.

Opinion polls show a tight race, with the October 7 attacks crucial to many voters' decisions.

In this regard, Yakov Katz told the BBC that the heritage that was attacked back then was like a coin, with two sides.

"It is true that there were some failures and mistakes that led to the Hamas invasion, but on the other hand, Netanyahu believes that he reshaped the Middle East and made Israel safer today. And that is the argument that Israeli voters took when they voted," he said.

The attack looms over the election, once again dividing Israel politically.

To supporters, this is confirmation that Netanyahu remains necessary to keep Israel safe. But, conversely, his critics say his continued political life would endanger Israel.