Efrat Fenigson: Israel-Hamas War Update From The Field, Including Key Insights, Questions & Concerns

The following update comes from Efrat Fenigson who is based in Tel Aviv.

https://efrat.substack.com/p/israel-hamas-war-an-update

October 7th, 2023

This is Efrat Fenigson and I’m here to share an update from Israel-Hamas War which started this morning.

I’m going to share some key details and concerns, mostly based on Israeli citizens’ voices from the ground, and on official statements.

This is a very tough day for me and for us in Israel. It is tough for people of Palestine too, especially now that Israel is starting to attack back. War is a horrible thing for everyone involved, except for those who get rich from it.

This morning, around 6am, sunrise, hundreds of Hamas terrorists, at least 300, breached the border fence in multiple places, completely unimpeded, leading to terror attacks and kidnappings in Israeli towns or villages.

The terrorists infiltrated a significant number of dry land outposts as well as a naval infiltration point in Zikim. As we speak, Israel is actively engaged in combat in 22 outposts (this is from the IDF statement).

The attacks have already resulted in over 100 casualties and more than 100 kidnappings of Israeli citizens.

In one village, 50 Israelis have been taken hostage, leaving people locked in shelters for long periods of 8-9 hours without rescue.

In some places the terrorists were burning the village and people didn’t know if to leave the shelter and surrender or stay and pray the fire doesn't catch them.

Many young people who were in a big outdoor party near the Gaza envelope villages, were attacked there, some ran away, some were injured and some are still missing.

Apparently Israeli Defense forces that were supposed to be around Gaza were placed around the West Bank because of security concerns so the Gaza envelope was left unoccupied with military.

Soldiers are being recruited for reserves, but because of stupid reasons such as no public transport they’re waiting hours to get to bases.

Mainstream media apparently admits that IDF spokesperson is forbidding to tell the complete truth, highlighting a lack of transparency. Only now, 6pm Israel time, 12 hours after the event started, we received the first formal announcement from IDF spokesperson:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-october-7-2023/

A year ago there was a military operation in Gaza to prepare for such events, and ongoingly there are trainings for these kinds of scenarios. This raises serious questions about Israeli intelligence. What happened?

Two years ago there was a successful deployment of underground barriers in with sensors -- to alert terrorists breaches. Israel has one of the most advanced and high tech armies, how come there was zero response to the border and fence breaching??

I served in the IDF 25 years ago, in the intelligence forces. There’s no way Israel did not know of what’s coming. A cat moving alongside the fence is triggering all forces. So this??

What happened to the “strongest army in the world”?

How come border crossings were wide open??

Something is VERY WRONG HERE, something is very strange, this chain of events is very unusual and not typical for the Israeli defense system.

With the recent normalization efforts of Israel and Palestine led by Saudi Arabia, I wonder whether a prisoners exchange deal is something that could only be seriously considered by Israel if a shocking event like that happened?

Is it a possibility that only with Israeli hostages it can be justified to release dangerous prisoners from Israeli prisons?

MSM reported that “Deputy Hamas leader Saleh Al-Aruri suggests using Israeli prisoners for leverage in negotiations.”

A point about the situation in Israel in the past few years - those who follow me know, that there’s a general sense of insecurity in Israel, there’s political and social instability, public funds are being misused on agendas such as Covid, climate, judicial reform, abolishing cash and more. The current and government is highly corrupt in my view, while the previous one was no better.

I don’t care about having a popular opinion, I care about exposing evil forces - wherever they are:

To me this surprise attack seems like a planned operation. On all fronts.

This is a failure to protect the people of Israel, for sure, perhaps the biggest failure since the Yom Kippur war exactly 50 years ago, if not bigger. - by the way - is it a coincidence it’s exactly 50 years ago, almost on the day? The Yom Kippur War was on Oct. 6th 1973.

If I was a conspiracy theorist I would say that this feels like the work of the Deep State.

It feels like the people of Israel and the people of Palestine have been sold, once again, to the higher powers that be.

At the same time, this is still very difficult to fathom.

Please share this update.

Take care,
Efrat

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