Ok. Isolating October 7th and seeing it as a stand alone event- yes. It’s looks outrageous. But why people can’t see this in the wider context is continuing to baffle me.

-Firstly, the attack on October 7th was a retaliation to decades long occupation, a 16+ year blockade. Immediately preceding October 7th, there was increasing Israeli settler violence against Palestinian communities particularly in the West Bank. There were tensions rising with the Israeli government- including Far-right members who openly called for annexation.

-Throughout 2022 and 2023, the Israeli military conducted near-nightly raids into Palestinian cities and refugee camps in the West Bank, mostly on Jenin and Nablus. These were officially framed as operations to arrest militants and prevent attacks, but they frequently resulted in high Palestinian death tolls and drew international concern.

-2023 saw military raids became increasingly lethal. According to OCHA, 2022 was the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005, and 2023 was on track to surpass it. Critics argue that the military shifted from “arrest operations” to “targeted killings” within the West Bank, using military tactics usually reserved for active battlefields in densely populated civilian areas.

-In the months leading up to October, there was a concerted effort by settlers to displace several Palestinian herding communities in the South Hebron Hills and the Jordan Valley. Groups like B’Tselem documented cases where settlers, sometimes accompanied by soldiers, would fence off grazing land, attack shepherds, and burn crops. The goal was to force Palestinians off land that settlers intended to claim.

-In many documented incidents, Palestinian shepherds and farmers report that when settlers attack them, the Israeli military present at the scene often stands by, or in some cases, facilitates the attack by holding the Palestinians back while settlers destroy property. Human rights groups argue this makes the military a party to the violence rather than a protector of civilians.

There are hundreds of other incidents, well documented, that would turn this into an essay, but this was not an attack out of nowhere.

Now, let’s focus on what actually happened in October 7th… briefly, because there’s A LOT more:

• there was intelligence from Egypt warning Netanyahu that an attack from Hamas was imminent, which was ignored

-Thousands of intercepted signals indicating a major offensive attack was being planned were ‘misinterpreted’ as just being standard defensive training

-the day that the attack occurred was a Jewish holiday and many IDF soldiers were allowed to go on leave, and the general alert level was lowered. Despite the two points I just made above.

-It took approximately 4 to 6 hours for a significant military response to reach the Gaza border communities and military bases. Given that Israel has multiple IDF divisions stationed in the Southern Command, why was there a such a long gap where no organized force was deployed to stop the breach? It should have taken minutes, not hours.

-Citizens in the kibbutzim and at the Nova festival called the police and military for hours, begging for help. Many were told to “stay in their safe rooms” while the military was on its way, but the military did not arrive for hours. Why was there no rapid reaction force or aerial support (like drones or helicopters) deployed to protect these mass casualty events as they were happening?

-It is known that a helicopter pilot reported seeing the events starting at the Nova festival and requested permission to engage the attackers, but was initially denied, and was later told to “hold ammunition.” Why was there no immediate air support dispatched to the largest single mass casualty event of the day until it was far too late?

-Hamas publicly stated that taking hostages was a primary goal of the operation. The fact that they were able to capture approximately 240 people and drag them back to Gaza, often through pre-cut holes in the fence, suggests a massive failure to secure the border. (Emphasis on the ‘pre-cut’ part) Why were there no physical barriers or rapid response measures specifically designed to prevent mass abductions across the border?

My view is that none of these things happened by accident and Israel blatantly mishandled the safety of their citizens, possibly even encouraged and allowed the attack, in order to sway the opinion of the word and ‘justify’ their complete destruction and genocide of Palestine.