On conceptions - Aluf Benn in Haaretz:

‘What caused Israeli intelligence and the Israeli military to be taken completely by surprise on the terrible morning of October 7? How could the sophisticated surveillance system that Israel deployed in and around the Gaza Strip fail so completely to provide a warning that could have saved so many lives? There are surely intelligence and technological reasons for this blindness, but one fundamental failure stands out above the rest: No one in Israel foresaw anything like Hamas’ military plan.
Mohammed Deif and Yahya Sinwar planned a brigade-size assault on all army posts and Israeli communities near the Gaza border with the objective of killing as many Israelis as possible, abducting hundreds of women and children to Gaza, savagely abusing the victims, terrorizing everyone else, and gathering intelligence from the army bases.’

(…)

‘Hamas’ military build-up was not kept completely out of sight. Its terrorists trained right out in the open, in broad daylight, and the Israeli side that was monitoring this activity saw infantry units being built and training for combat in Gaza.
But the IDF assumed that the Hamas elite force was being built to fight the IDF, Nukhba versus Golani, and interpreted it as a sign of Hamas becoming more establishment and transforming from a terrorist organization into a regular army. Israel failed to grasp that the confrontation with the IDF would only be a secondary mission, while the main effort would be a mass slaughter of civilians in their homes and at a large outdoor event, all through the area, and all at the same time.
This is how Hamas acted on the operational level, when the terrorists neutralized observation stations and seized control of military posts to shut down Israel’s combat intelligence, to paralyze the IDF’s command and control and leave the civilian communities defenseless.
And this is how they acted on the tactical level, in the communities that were assaulted. A holding force was positioned at the entrance to each community to block any arriving reinforcements, while the main force went house to house, where the terrorists murdered and raped and burned and tortured and kidnapped as many victims as they could find.’ (…)
‘It was in accordance with this scenario that the thin Gaza Division force was deployed. This was the scenario that its commanders and soldiers trained for. The IDF General Staff assumed there would be sufficient warning, that the underground barrier and the border fence would thwart or delay any major attack, and that the air force would very quickly come to aid the defensive effort.
The science philosopher Karl Popper taught us that the story precedes the facts, and that all new knowledge begins with a hypothesis that gives meaning to the details. When the story is misunderstood, the facts are misinterpreted. It was possible to observe Hamas’ military training and to make a professional assessment of the level of soldiering in Gaza, of the arms and military equipment there.
But if one mistakenly thinks that this force is being built to fight against the IDF, or for the sake of a small, localized operation, it’s easy to scoff at an enemy that is sending pickup trucks, motorcycles and hang-gliders against tanks, armored vehicles and an air force. If it were understood that Hamas was building up its army to attack defenseless civilians, and that the invasion would take place across an entire area simultaneously and not just at one or two points, the seriousness of the threat would have been a lot clearer.

Had the people responsible in Israel given a moment’s thought to the possibility that Hamas was preparing for a huge massacre and mass kidnapping, and not just another border incident, the Egyptian warning that “something big is about to happen in Gaza” and the disturbing reports that were flowing into the Shin Bet security service and Military Intelligence on the eve of the invasion would have taken on a wholly different meaning. But having missed the story, they set aside all the warnings, and with eyes wide shut, led us into this calamity.’

Read the article here.

It’s the conception all over again. See the Yom Kipur War.

Some argue that the culture of overconfidence is related to the moral corruption. See here.

It apparently all comes down to this: don’t miss the story, and/or: always question your own stories i.e. your own interpretation.