Ex-Shin Bet Official Recounts Hamas Attack Confusion

Miri Shoshani, a former head of the operational interception division at the Shin Bet, revealed in a new documentary that she was told the initial Hamas assault on October 7th was a "drill." Shoshani, who was at her home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza where her daughter Ofir was killed, described her own difficulty grasping the scale of the attack.

Upon hearing the first sirens, Shoshani's daughter asked about the shooting. Shoshani offered to pick her up, but Ofir was afraid to leave. Meanwhile, Shoshani tried to get information through her work contacts. "I was in shock. I wrote in the work WhatsApp group and they didn't answer me. The head of the regional operational staff called me and said, 'It's a drill.' He said he was in the command center, and I asked why. He said there were various warning signs during the night. I told him this wasn't a drill, that they were shooting at the whole country. He was shocked and hung up the phone."

Shoshani, who previously dealt with senior Hamas officials abroad, admitted she was part of the prevailing "conception" that underestimated Hamas. Her initial thought upon realizing the severity was about Hamas leader Sinwar. Even after terrorists entered the kibbutz, she believed it was a small infiltration that security forces would quickly contain. She managed to direct a Duvdevan unit to the kibbutz by 9:15 AM, expecting the incident to end soon.

However, at 10:15 AM, her daughter Ofir called saying, "They shot me." Ofir's father, Shai, was wounded trying to rescue her. Shoshani continued speaking with her daughter, trying to get forces to her location. Ofir spoke calmly, saying she was in pain and asking where the forces were, before contact was lost. Shoshani received confirmation of her daughter's death on Monday afternoon after forces reached Ofir's room.

Shoshani also commented on the decision to dispatch a "Tequila" team, an elite unit, in response to pre-attack warning signs. She stated this choice indicated the threat's scope was misunderstood. "When you think there will be a raid, you dispatch the army, not Tequila," she explained, calling it proof that the situation was not understood. She concluded that the failure was not solely the Shin Bet's, but a broader systemic and professional failure involving policy and the military. "If we don't understand how this happened to us, we won't be able to fix it," she stated.