In March, the British parliament released a detailed and thoroughly documented report on the October 7 attacks. Jonathan Foreman, one of the lead researchers behind the report, summarizes what he and his colleagues learned about the Israeli failures that allowed Hamas such gruesome success. The story he tells makes harrowing reading, and belies any attempt to construct a political narrative: the government, the IDF brass, the commanders on the ground, the intelligence services, and even the Israeli Supreme Court all contributed to the disaster. Not only did the military establishment fail to defend the Gaza border properly, but it was too slow and ineffective in responding to the invasion once it began.

Successive Israeli defense ministers and [military] chiefs of staff from 2002 onward cut expenditure on the IDF’s ground capabilities, underfunding training, maintenance, transport capacity, and combat logistics, in the belief that the country could rely on air-force jets, intelligence agencies, and special forces to keep its enemies at bay and protect its citizenry.

The belief that substantial conventional ground forces were no longer that necessary underlay the cutting of compulsory national service from three years to just over two and a half and also a new policy of ending reservist duty at age 40 instead of 54, even though this deprived the IDF of a great many combat-experienced troops.

That the attacks did not kill many more people, and have a vastly more destructive effect on the state of Israel, was largely thanks to the extraordinary heroism of civilian defense teams, local police units, and small groups of soldiers who fought Hamas attacks on communities, cities, and key junctions even as nearby IDF garrisons were overrun. The thanks also goes to special-forces teams that were the first to arrive in the south in response to the invasion.

The entire report is worth reading, especially alongside Mosaic’s coverage of political and military failures and Israeli overreliance on technology.

Yesterday, the Iranian foreign minister flew to Geneva to meet with European diplomats. President Trump, meanwhile, indicated that cease-fire negotiations might soon begin with Iran, which would presumably involve Tehran agreeing to make concessions regarding its nuclear program, while Washington pressures Israel to halt its military activities. According to Israeli media, Iran already began putting out feelers to the U.S. earlier this week. Aviram Bellaishe considers the purpose of these overtures:

The regime’s request to return to negotiations stems from the principle of deception and delay that has guided it for decades. Iran wants to extricate itself from a situation of total destruction of its nuclear facilities. It understands that to save the nuclear program, it must stop at a point that would allow it to return to it in the shortest possible time. So long as the negotiation process leads to halting strikes on its military capabilities and preventing the destruction of the nuclear program, and enables the transfer of enriched uranium to a safe location, it can simultaneously create the two tracks in which it specializes—a false facade of negotiations alongside a hidden nuclear race.