On the Twentieth Anniversary of the Gaza Withdrawal

I think it is time for us to acknowledge that Israel in its 77-year history has made some critically painful mistakes.

In 1973, after the Yom Kippur War, where 2,812 Israeli soldiers had lost their lives, the Agranat Commission had been established to investigate Israeli intelligence failures.

 It was found that the military and intelligence community failed to establish the gravity of the Egyptian military build-up along the Chaim Bar Lav Line. They also felt that they failed to establish that Syria would enter the war, assuming it would only follow Egypt’s lead.

This marked not only a turning point in Israeli military strategy but also a profound moment of national introspection. The commission’s findings reverberated throughout the country, prompting widespread debate about leadership, accountability, and the vulnerability of even the most resilient societies. Over the decades, Israel has faced similarly daunting crossroads, each underscoring the complexities of balancing security with the aspirations and rights of its people. As we reflect on these events, it becomes clear that acknowledging missteps is essential for growth and for forging a more just and secure future.

 We have certainly reached such a moment, today.  Prior to October 7^th, 2023, female surveillance spotters, or tatzpitaniyot, had been consistently warning their commanding officer and superiors that they were observing suspicious, atypical military drills just across the Gaza border. They witnessed Hamas members practicing raids and hostage taking drills.

They reported these events to their superiors and that “something big was about to happen.”

 These reports were shrugged off with a dismissive attitude by their male superiors. It was part of the prevalent “conceptia” that Hamas, which had governed Gaza since June 7, 2007, was more interested in domestic governance than in attacking Israel.

These women were totally vulnerable. They had no guns, no weapons whatsoever. They sat in a small, unprotected room, in places along the border such as Kibbutz Nahal Oz.  Their eyes focused on screens. Many of them were away from their homes for the first times. They bonded as sisters.

These warnings, so urgent and clear, were not echoes from the edge but rather the vigilant observations of young analysts charged with safeguarding the nation’s borders. Despite their crucial proximity to unfolding threats, their voices were stifled by ingrained biases and a pervasive overconfidence in the status quo. The cost of this disregard would soon become heartbreakingly apparent.

As one member of this unit, Noa, stated, “Our job is to protect all residents. We have a very hard job – you sit on shift and you are not allowed to squint or move your eyes even a little. You must always be focused.”

The results were tragic. Twelve of these courageous female warriors were among the first to be brutally murdered or taken hostage on October 7^th.

This dangerous underestimation, rooted in entrenched perceptions and organizational inertia, echoes the very failures the Agranat Commission sought to address half a century earlier. The reliance on old paradigms and the dismissal of critical voices—especially those from the ranks of young, often overlooked soldiers—exacted a heavy price. The tragic events that unfolded on October 7th were not merely the result of external hostility; they were compounded by internal blind spots that history had already warned against.

In the aftermath, Israeli society once again finds itself grappling with uncomfortable truths. The urgent questions resurface: How do institutions incorporate dissent and warning into decision-making processes? What structures must be built to ensure that cautionary signals are not lost amid hierarchy and hubris? There is an unmistakable sense that lessons, so painfully earned in the past, must be heeded with humility now.

Unfortunately, so much of the dots trace back to the 2005 Gaza withdrawal, almost 20 years ago, to the day. As Major General Dan Harel argued, at the time, one of the many fatal flaws of the Gaza withdrawal was not to obtain any commitments from the reigning Palestinian Authority, at the time. This perspective tended to embolden the authoritarian and jihadist tendencies within Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The following year, Hamas won the Palestinian Parliamentary Elections, and the Islamist terrorist group has rules with an iron fist, ever since. This inevitably paved the disastrous rad to October 7^th, and where Israel finds itself today.

Beyond that, Israel lacked any sort of plan for “the day after” the Israeli residents of Gaza were forced to withdraw every remaining remnant of their Jewish life. The visage of Israeli residents of Gaza being forced to abandon their homes, their livelihoods, their very way of life, only served to empower Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Israel has to learn from a multitude of fatally flawed experiments: First Oslo, where we erroneously projected our own beneficent nature onto our enemies.

The Palestinian national Charter, incidentally, of the Palestinian Authority, openly speaks about “liberation through armed struggle.” Article 9  of the Covenant states, “Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine”. Article 10 states, “Commando action constitutes the nucleus of armed struggle.” This requires its escalation, comprehensiveness, and the mobilization of all the Palestinian popular and educational efforts and their organization and involvement in the armed Palestinian revolution. It also requires the achieving of unity for the national (watani) struggle among the different groupings of the Palestinian people, and between the Palestinian people and the Arab masses, so as to secure the continuation of the revolution, its escalation, and victory”.

Yet many in the international community foolishly believe that the corrupt Palestinian Authority would be better at running Gaza “the day after the war” than Hamas.

As Israel stands at this inflection point, the imperative to listen— to truly listen— not only to all voices within Israeli society, but also to those of our enemies, has never been more vital.

The resilience of a nation is not just measured by its response to threats, but by its ability to learn from its own history, to adapt, and to value the insights of those willing to speak up. In this, there lies the hope for renewal, accountability, and a more secure future for all its people.

Sarah N. Stern is Founder and President of EMET.