Israel police say IDF, security agency could have saved lives at Nova festival had they shared intel

The alerts began when IDF intelligence noticed dozens to hundreds of Israeli SIM cellphone cards switching on within Gaza, which was an indication of a potential invasion.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Israeli police said more Nova festival attendees could have been saved had the IDF and security agency Shin Bet shared intel with law enforcement, according to a report on Channel 12.

Police commander for the Negev area Eyal Azulai said that law enforcement had doubts about the safety of the Nova Music Festival.

Intel received overnight on October 6th and 7th, if shared with police, could have enabled them to end the party before the trouble began, Azulai claimed.

The alerts began when IDF intelligence reportedly noticed dozens to hundreds of Israeli SIM cellphone cards switching on within Gaza, which was an indication of a potential invasion.

The SIM card warning was taken seriously enough to lead to telephone meetings with IDF Chief of Staff Lt .-Gen. Herzi Halevi, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, and other senior IDF officials.

The conference’s outcome was Shin Bet’s decision to send some reinforcements to the border and revisit the situation in the morning.

The scale of the invasion on the morning of October 7th was such that these reinforcements weren’t sufficient, and the Hamas offensive was beyond the expectations of the IDF and Shin Bet.

The police maintain that they should have been included in the conference or the determinations following the meeting.

However, it is suspected that the IDF and Shin Bet didn’t do so either because they didn’t think the threat of invasion was likely or because they wanted to avoid sharing the intel more widely to include the police.

Responding to the accusation, the IDF said they are currently probing the errors that led to October 7th, and the results have not yet been determined.

However, official reports were supposed to have been released in June, and given the delay, reports are being leaked regularly, influencing the public’s opinion on the matter.

The IDF has made the argument that the police should have prevented the Nova Festival from happening so close to Gaza, and it was the police’s responsibility to keep participants safe.

However, the police insist that the IDF and Shin Bet should have notified them of the security threat so they could have taken action.

Although the police succeeded in evacuating a large number of participants once the invasion began, the report criticized police chief Kobi Shabtai for not even calling Halevi for more help until 11:45 am.

The report also shows that IDF chiefs were either in shock or lacked clarity about the situation, which may explain why field commanders did not arrive in certain areas until 1 or 2 pm.

In the current situation, there is doubt whether the police on one side or the IDF and Shin Bet on the other had greater responsibility to prevent or at least forestall the devastating Hamas invasion on October 7th that claimed the lives of 364 civilians and caused 44 to be kidnapped to Gaza.