Shin Bet reveals: The secret that crippled Israel’s intel before October 7th

The Israel Security Agency (ISA), commonly known as Shin Bet, pointed to the mysterious elimination of Mazen Fuqah in 2017 as a pivotal event that eroded its ability to gather critical intel from human sources in the region.

Mazen Fuqah, a terrorist released from an Israeli prison to Gaza as part of the 2011 Shalit prisoner exchange, was known for orchestrating attacks in Judea and Samaria. His death in 2017, an operation for which no group claimed responsibility, triggered a brutal response from Hamas. According to Kan military correspondent Roy Sharon, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar believed Fuqah’s killing was linked to a network of Palestinian collaborators working with Israeli intelligence. In retaliation, Sinwar ordered the execution of numerous Palestinian Arabs suspected of aiding Israel, a purge that sent shockwaves through Gaza.

The Shin Bet’s inquiry suggests that this wave of killings instilled deep fear among potential informants, drastically reducing the number willing to cooperate with Israel. By the eve of the October 7th massacre, the agency’s already limited pool of human sources in Gaza proved unreliable or ineffective. One collaborator deliberately misled their ISA coordinator, providing false information, while another was unaware of Hamas’s meticulous preparations for the attack. Other sources either went silent—failing to answer calls—or were never contacted by Israeli intelligence, leaving critical gaps in the lead-up to the devastating assault.

The report underscores how the fallout from Fuqah’s elimination and the subsequent executions may have created a chilling effect, undermining Israel’s ability to penetrate Hamas’s operations. With human intelligence sources either compromised, silenced, or too terrified to assist, the Shin Bet’s investigation paints a stark picture of the challenges Israel faced in anticipating and thwarting the October 7th tragedy.