NYT: Netanyahu ignored Shabak reports on Israel's weakening security

Before the escalation of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement, representatives of the Israeli Security Agency (SHABAK) had been warning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for several months that the political instability caused by his domestic policy weakens the country's security, but the prime minister ignored the statements of Israeli generals.

"The most powerful military force in the Middle East not only completely underestimated the scale of the attack, but also failed utterly in its intelligence-gathering efforts, largely due to arrogance and the mistaken assumption that Hamas posed a contained threat," The New York Times reports.

The article also points out that on the day Israel's parliament approved judicial reform on 24 July, which sparked mass protests, two senior generals approached lawmakers to convey urgent warnings about the state's military state.

The head of the Israel Defence Forces Military Intelligence Directorate, Aharon Haliv, provided secret reports claiming that internal unrest was weakening Israel's defence. One document indicated that leaders of Iran, Hamas, Syria, Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (an organisation banned in Russia) were convinced that it was time to strike.

Only two members of parliament came to hear Haliv's briefing. Netanyahu refused to meet with the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, General Herzi Halevy, who also wanted to convey the warnings to the prime minister.