Frontline On Air | The Gaza crisis was a ticking time bomb

Regardless of the outcome, the Gaza war will have significant implications for regional politics.

Beyond the current fighting, the Gaza war will have immediate implications within Israel. The conflict has dealt a body-blow to Israel’s image of invincibility and its ability to identify and eliminate specific enemies of the state. Israel expended huge resources to prevent precisely the kind of incursions that occurred on October 7: just the barricades along the 60 km border with Gaza cost one billion dollars.

The attacks have dented the credibility of the country’s intelligence services that prided themselves on being fully informed about the plans of their enemies through contacts and eavesdropping devices. Perhaps, the failure was in the assessment of information: there are some reports that Israeli intelligence knew of Hamas’ exercises along the border, but was convinced that Hamas was not interested in any conflict and it attached greater value to funding from Qatar and the employment of 20,000 Gazans in Israel.

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