Were Israeli ministers the last to learn about Gaza tunnels?
According to different sources, Israeli Cabinet ministers did not receive information about the tunnels dug by Hamas in 2014, though the information was gathered by Israeli intelligence and was transferred to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel's state comptroller, retired Judge Joseph Shapira, has apparently intensified his criticism of the way that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon made decisions concerning the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) readiness to face the threat posed by Hamas tunnels along the Gaza border with Israel.
Political and military figures who read the Nov. 18 final draft of the state comptroller’s report on the issue told Al-Monitor that most of the criticism revolves around the fact that neither Netanyahu nor Ya’alon shared the IDF’s intelligence about the threat posed by the tunnels with the members of the Security Cabinet. In the meantime, the prime minister was hit with the “submarine scandal” (questioning Netanyahu’s motives behind the deal), which pushed the draft of the state comptroller’s report from the main headlines, though apparently not for long. The actual report is due to be released soon. It will inevitably lead to questions about how detailed, up-to-date information about the tunnels, known to almost every military officer of high and low rank serving in the Southern Command, was not brought before the Security Cabinet. As a result of this glaring omission, the IDF was left without a response to the armed Hamas fighters who penetrated Israeli territory during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014.
According to sources who read it, the most recent draft of the report actually tempers its criticism of the IDF. At present, the state comptroller’s main criticism of the military branch is that the chief of staff, the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate and the other members of the General Staff should have tried harder to ensure that the Cabinet was warned about the tunnels. Netanyahu claims that the information was relayed to the Cabinet in 13 separate meetings. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that when armed Hamas fighters from the Nuhba (Elite) Unit burst out of the tunnels into Israeli territory on the eighth day of the fighting, it came as a complete surprise.
“The information was so obvious and familiar that no one imagined that this information — known by everyone — would never make it to the Cabinet,” said one Israeli military source to Al-Monitor, speaking on condition of anonymity. “What could people on our level do? Fire the chief of staff? Or maybe we should have interrogated the defense minister to see if he relayed the intelligence that we collected?” he asked angrily.
