A day before Hamas launched its surprise attack on October 7, an alert regarding the activation of a major weapons-related component in northern Gaza reached the Yarkon base of Unit 8200, according to a report by Channel 12 News.
Security officials reportedly detected Hamas operatives dismantling storage facilities and moving about the area in an unusual operational manner. Under standard procedures, such a warning should have triggered an immediate alert across the entire sector.
However, Unit 8200 personnel decided not to pass the information by phone and instead sent it only via email. Because the message arrived on Friday, the eve of the Simchat Torah holiday, no one in the Gaza Division opened the inbox. The critical information therefore went unanswered.
The alert was received between Friday afternoon and evening. Overnight, additional troubling signs emerged, but without awareness of the earlier warning, the events were not treated as an urgent operational threat.
The report also notes that between Tuesday and Thursday of that week, further intelligence was collected regarding Hamas weapons systems. While these earlier indications were classified as routine activity that did not warrant raising the alert level, they nonetheless suggested that Hamas was preparing for something.
Lt. Col. A., the Gaza Division’s intelligence officer who was later dismissed by IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, received the information but classified it as a Hamas “show of force” rather than a significant operational step. The matter was not presented during the situation assessment and did not reach senior command.
The IDF responded to the report, stating: “The IDF has conducted and presented a wide range of in-depth investigations into the events of the morning of October 7 and the night preceding it. The findings were presented to the families, the injured, relevant decision-makers, the media, and the public. The investigations included lessons and insights, and the IDF in general – and Unit 8200 in particular – are working to implement them.”