While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East

by Yaakov Katz, Amir Bohbot

NOW A NATIONAL BESTSELLER!

"Crisply written... draws on excellent sources within Israel’s military and intelligence services." — The Wall Street Journal

A powerful indictment of the political and military decisions that led to October 7

While Israel Slept tells the gripping inside story of how Hamas, Israel’s weakest enemy, succeeded in launching a surprise attack on one of the world’s most powerful militaries. Through a detailed examination of the events leading up to October 7, 2023, the book exposes the intelligence and strategic failures that enabled this devastating invasion. It takes readers back in time, showing how years of complacency, mistaken intelligence analysis, and a misguided policy of containment enabled Hamas to prepare for an assault that Israel did not believe was possible and that would change the Middle East.

The book unveils the dramatic events of the night before the attack, highlighting the cracks in Israel’s military and political leadership. It provides unprecedented details on how key warnings were missed, and how Israel ignored the growing threat from Hamas, believing that the group was weak and deterred. By exposing these failures, While Israel Slept offers a stark, sobering account of how overconfidence and complacency paved the way for disaster, while underscoring the critical lessons Israel must embrace to safeguard its future.

Genres: History, Israel, Nonfiction, Politics, Military Fiction, Terrorism, War

326 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 30, 2025

About the author

Yaakov Katz (Hebrew: יעקב כץ) is Editor-in-Chief of The Jerusalem Post. He is a faculty member and lecturer at Harvard University’s Extension School where he teaches an advanced course in journalism. He previously served for close to a decade as the paper's military reporter and defense analyst and is the co-author of the books: The Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower and Israel vs. Iran: The Shadow War. In 2012-2013, Katz was one of 12 international fellows to spend a year at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Originally from Chicago, Katz also has a law degree from Bar Ilan University. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife and four children.

Reviews

[layan ليان]

This was indeed an… experience. I don’t want to keep it long - but unlike the book, I’ll try to keep my review as unbiased as possible. Trigger warning, though, I might fail at doing so because I’m Palestinian.

____

“After the attack, some of the surviving soldiers revealed how they had filed reports and warnings to their commanders in the weeks preceding the invasion about suspicious activity along the border.”

That part is true, there were warnings. The real shocker is here… Israel's “greatest army in the Middle East, if not one of the greatest in the world,” ignored them. The soldiers anticipated what was coming there was ENOUGH intelligence, but arrogance blinded them. I would say this isn’t a tragedy of not knowing - but rather not listening. Simple as that.

“After more than a year and a half of war against Hamas, a decisive victory still seemed far away, and many questioned whether it was even possible.”

This statement reveals a cery clear truth. If Israel couldn't see on October 7 that this war would drag on, then the issue isn't solely Hamas… it’s the illusion that one side can “win” while the other simply vanishes (which, that was THE goal, to destroy Hamas and it’s existence in Gaza + the WB). That’s not how things work in this region, and it’s clear enough from all the statements the book mentions from Israeli officials, that they also knew this.

“Every war that Israel has fought has had its mistakes. But the desire of Israelis to achieve peace never faded.”

lets pause here, this line sounds noble, almost like a fairy tale?? Yes, many Israelis genuinely want peace. But let’s not pretend that the political leaders (either right or left wing) have ever sought peace for both peoples equally. Looking back at the Oslo Accords, several Israeli officials openly admitted they viewed it as a way to “manage” Palestinians rather than truly empower them. In other words, it was peace prioritizing Israel’s “greater good,” not necessarily for Palestinians.

”Israelis wanted a Western-style existence, one of leisure, travel, and high quality. But it forgot something basic—Israel is not in Europe or South America. It is in the Middle East and surrounded by Arab enemies, many dedicated to a single goal—destroying the world’s only Jewish state.”

Ummmm, which “Arab enemies” are we talking about right now??? Jordan and Egypt signed peace deals decades ago. Saudi Arabia has been moving toward normalization (at least before October 7) The UAE, Bahrain, and Qatar are hardly threatening Israel. Iraq disintegrated long ago. Syria (before December 2024) is tied up with its own chaos and a drug focused regime. The truth is, Israel isn’t surrounded by Arab nations plotting its destruction… it’s surrounded by countries that either seek peace, have made peace, or are simply too broken to even care.

”Those strikes did nothing to help the people who were being murdered, raped, and burned—most of which, according to postwar inquiries, occurred in the first four hours of the attack.”

This statement misses a darker truth, Israel’s airstrikes didn’t only target Hamas fighters. The IAF bombed homes containing both Hamas members and Israeli hostages. Some Israeli hostages died due to Israeli strikes, not only at the hands of Hamas. That fact rarely makes the headlines, but let’s make sure of it being mentioned more, in the future.

”War has come. And Israel needed all the weapons it could get its hands on.”

If this war were purely about Hamas (armed mainly with old Kalashnikovs, makeshift bombs, and DIY rockets that the Iron Dome can easily destory) why the frantic global search for weapons? Why the large resupplies from the US and Europe? The scale of Israels military buildup only makes sense if the goal is greater than just Hamas… specifically, reshaping Gaza itself.

”Some terrorists were found with notebooks that included statements by Abdullah Azzam, the al-Qaeda founder, who claimed that killing purifies the soul.”

Honestly, I won’t even engage with this 🤦‍♀️ they just tossed in Abdullah Azzam’s name for rhetorical seasoning, My God…

“Israel’s main concern in this area was Iranian efforts to establish forward bases in Syria… bombing targets almost every week.”

Are we talking about the same Syria that collapsed into narcostate corruption? The Syria where Hafiz al-Assad long ago gave up the Golan Heights? Or the current Syria that is barely on its foot again? That hasn’t made a single move to launch any missile on Israel, let alone launch a WAR?*** If Israel wants to keep bombing Syria, uh okay??? (Definitely not okay) but pretending Damascus was an existential threat in 2023/up to Dec 2024 is laughable.

***: Yes, I’m aware of the DIY rockets that attacked Israel -from the Syrian city Dar’aa- a couple of months ago. But if you look further into the case, you’ll realize the group that attacked Israel is part of the remaining Hezbollah militias in Syria. AKA, not the government.

“Cohen issued a clear directive: ‘Gaza City does not have one way to bring it down… creativity will be our greatest asset.’”

Call it ‘strategy’ or ‘creativity’, but when you attack the entire structure of a city, you are describing collective punishment. At some point, the term ‘genocide’ goes from being a figure of speech to being a reality.


“It is true that by taking such measures the IDF gave up the element of surprise… but they helped move around 85 percent of the residents of northern Gaza elsewhere before the ground offensive.”

Translation -> forced displacement, presented as ‘humanitarian caution’. Moving 85% of civilians from one ruined area to another was never about any sort of ‘mercy’.

“Some Israeli officials wanted to destroy the entire [hospital] complex… Israel did not want to directly bomb a hospital.”

It’s interesting that the book ignores the IDF’s own media campaign about “underground tunnels” located under those same hospitals (that went on for the past two years). The authors note Hamas’s presence, but they don’t mention that Israel DID in fact bomb hospitals, including maternity and neonatal wards. I bet Hamas fighters hiding in incubators, I bet.

”There’s no denying that the death of any innocent person is tragic… but unlike Israel’s enemies, the IDF has a code of conduct to ensure the fewest civilian casualties possible.”

60K (excluding the WB) killed civilians later… sure.

”This is the legacy we owe… to the future generations who will inherit the nation we shape today.”

On the bones of Palestinians, Yemenis, Syrians, Lebanese, Iranians, even Israelis who will never see their hostages again. A legacy is never made of bones stacked upon bones of nations.

As I’m writing this review right now, Israel has hit a new milestone (clap, guys 👏👏👏👏🥳🥳). Israel so far has bombed Gaza, the WB, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Tunisia (twice in the last 24 hours), and NOW Qatar. (Forgive me if I messed a country!)

_____


final thoughts???

So, is ‘While Israel Slept’ worth reading? If you want to understand how Israel views its own failures and justifies its decisions, yes. If you want an unbiased analysis and perspective? Nope.

I genuinely shouldn’t have even bothered with the review, but I would like to point one last thing out… I would argue that Israel was wide awake, but chose to ignore what was happening.

[Ellen Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. While I followed the events of October 7, 2023, I never truly understood them the way I do now after reading this book. It gives a very thorough account of what happened and how including things leading up to that day. Despite it being about countries I have never been to, everything was explained so well that I found it very easy to follow and even was able to easily remember important town names and commander names. I think this book was very well written from a factual standpoint as much as it could be. This book is something everyone should read so they can be educated about and better understand things like this that happen around the world.

[Anais · Rating 5 out of 5]

everyone with an opinion on the conflict needs to read this book

[Ben Rothke]

For those seeking a definitive answer to who was at fault for October 7 and the associated finger-pointing, they won’t find it in While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East (St. Martin's Press) by Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot. The truth it, as they note, there were a lot of people at fault. What they will find, though, in part, is who some of the heroes were.
Part of the incredulousness of what occurred that fateful day is that Israel had invested billions in technology on the Gaza border. Israel, a country that has more cybersecurity firms than the UK, Canada, India, Germany, and France combined, with a population of roughly 9 million, while those five countries have approximately 1.5 billion inhabitants, how were they so blindsided by the Hamas terrorists?
The book begins with the story of seven female soldiers who were part of a unit in the IDF called tatzpitaniyot, Hebrew for observers. These women, just nineteen and twenty years old, were in the middle of their two-year compulsory military service and stationed at the Nachal Oz base, a few hundred yards from Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip.
Known as the eyes of the army, these soldiers had one job: monitor screens inside the base that watched every inch along the Israel-Gaza border. It was a tedious task, predominantly assigned to female soldiers, who, according to military studies, possessed superior visual acuity and observational skills compared to their male counterparts.
They did their job, and they did it well. The use of technology in addition to their own intuition told the tatzpitaniyot that something was amiss. When they reported it to senior officers, they were not listened to. Sadly, most of them died in the early morning of October 7.
The tatzpitaniyot who had warned their commanders that they were concerned about the situation along the Gaza border in the months before the October 7 attack were told to stop bothering them and even threatened with a court-martial.
The tatzpitaniyot said that they had seen unusual training and other actions taking place next to the border, with more and more people suddenly getting near the fence in the months leading up to the attack.
When one of the tatzpitaniyot felt that they weren't being heard, one of them decided to go directly to a senior commander in the area and was told, "I don't want to hear again about this nonsense. If you bother us again with these things, you'll be court-martialed."
Konseptziya, Hebrew for conception, was a series of false assumptions that Arab nations would not initiate another large-scale war with Israel. This mistake led to the Yom Kippur War, where Israel was caught by surprise by the coordinated Egyptian and Syrian attacks on October 6, 1973.
Fifty years later, Katz and Bohbot write that Israel was again lulled via a konseptziya that Hamas did not want war. For every one of the concepts that Hamas was going to attack, it was ignored or explained away.
When it came to Gaza, the IDF’s focus was on maintaining quiet while preparing for a possible standoff one day with Iran and Hezbollah. The book notes that there was no operational plan for a full-scale offensive in Gaza, and no detailed strategy of what to do in the event of a war.
The authors have done a fantastic job of piecing together how October 7 occurred. While fascinating, it is profoundly troubling and saddening given the depth of terror and death involved.
As painful as the atrocities committed by Hamas are, it’s equally painful to read that Israel possessed all the intelligence to piece together Hamas’s plans, but the IDF never connected them into a comprehensive picture to understand what was happening right before their eyes.
One of the most significant faults leading to October 7 is that the book states that Israel lacked significant human intelligence (HUMINT) in Gaza.
NATO defines HUMINT as “a category of intelligence derived from information collected and provided by human sources.” A typical HUMINT activity consists of interrogations and conversations with people having access to information.
As the name suggests, human intelligence is primarily collected by people and is commonly provided through espionage or other forms of covert surveillance. However, there are also overt methods of collection, such as via interrogation of subjects or simply through interviews.
With thousands of Hamas terrorists involved on October 7, and even more who knew what would occur, there was not a single one who could have alerted their Mossad operative with advance notice. Effective HUMINT would have solved that.
Compare that with the joke during the recent war with Iran that someone bumped into someone in Tehran and said slicha. To which the other person replied ain biya. The joke being that there were so many Mossad agents within Iran. As opposed to a dearth of agents and operatives in Gaza.
The Israel Military Intelligence Directorate, known as Aman, is the military intelligence body of the IDF. The book details deep, systemic failures and flaws in the way Israel thought it understood Hamas. Aman failed to grasp Hamas’s true intentions and mistakenly believed that the organization's leadership wanted a truce, rather than war.
A term used myriad times in the book is misread. From how the IDF clearly misread what was happening in Gaza when they decided in 1978 to grant approval for the establishment of the Islamic University of Gaza, to the West's misreading of Hamas from the start of the organization, and more.
When assigning blame for October 7, the authors don���t point to specific people, but do note that it was a systemic problem and that the system as a whole is to blame.
One of the people the authors do praise is Avigdor Lieberman, who wrote a 2016 report that Katz termed almost prophetic in its appraisal of what Hamas could do. Lieberman’s advantage is that he is not a career military man and was not blinded by some of the military-based konseptziya.
The 9/11 attacks in part resulted from communication failures, including a lack of collaboration and information-sharing between intelligence agencies like the FBI and CIA. This prevented the connection of critical intelligence on the terrorists.
One of the operational challenges Israel faced was integrating the various branches of the defense establishments to work together and synergize the flow of information, particularly between the Shin Bet and the Israeli Air Force.
As depressing a narrative as this book is, it concludes with some concrete recommendations on key issues that they believe are critical for Israel’s security. They will, on one hand, help prevent similar attacks from taking place, and on the other hand, will assist Israel in prosecuting a war more effectively if its enemies force one upon it.
One of those recommendations is the better use of HUMINT, rather than relying solely on technology.
The authors point out some of the blame on Benjamin Netanyahu, in that his fear that members of his coalition might abandon his government caused him to delay decisions that could have expedited a hosted deal and ceasefire. They write that Netanyahu placed political survival above national interests numerous times, allowing the war to extend unnecessarily. They write that it must change.
They also write that Israel has been notorious for putting the wrong people in public diplomacy roles and not using the right officials as the country's face and voice in the media. The IDF, for example, has chosen spokespersons over the years who had never appeared on camera before or worked with the media.
A few years before the war, a fighter pilot was appointed to the IDF’s foreign media spokesperson because he happened to speak English, while an Iron Dome officer was made the top military spokesperson because he had studied media relations 25 years earlier in college.
They write that Israel has to recognize that the media front is no less critical than the battlefield in Gaza or the home front on which Hamas missiles are fired. Israel also needs to recognize that public diplomacy is not limited to wartime. It needs to prepare messages ahead of time so that if and when a conflict erupts, people will understand why.
The authors have done a fantastic forensic analysis of how October 7 occurred, and sadly, how it could have been avoided. From leadership and military mistakes, overconfidence, complacency, to ignoring the tatzpitaniyot and more, there was a lot that went wrong on and before October 7, which the book details. This is a sobering yet important read about one of the most dreadful days in Israel’s history.
This is a book that is hard to put down once you start reading it, so don’t start if you have any immediate pressing deadlines. Israel did sleep, and Hamas did surprise them. Hopefully, it’s something that will never happen again.

[Randall Wallace · Rating 2 out of 5]

On page one, Yaakov writes, “mercilessly slaughtered” – has there EVER been a merciful slaughter? On page 6, “everywhere they went, they raped” – two years later there is still no evidence Hamas raped on October 7th. On page 7 there is a “handsome young (Israeli) officer”, while on page 11 is a “ruthless Hamas leader” and Palestinians calling “for Israel’s destruction.” Victims of Hamas are called “wonderful” (p.33) and the author can’t believe Israelis were attacked on October 7th while trying to fish. Meanwhile, there are dozens of cases of Palestinians killed and drowned by Israel for trying to fish. Even Israel’s Massacre at Tantura killed fishermen with no such moral concern.

To this books credit, the author mentions an Israeli helicopter pilot was told to fire on combatants where that fire might also kill Israelis (p.44) – those of us who read know this is formally Israel’s Hannibal Directive (look it up yourself) yet the author will never mention that nor the Dahiya Doctrine (look it up too) because both are war crimes and one is an unjustified crime against your OWN people. Yaakov wants us to feel bad for Commander Rosenfeld who ordered strikes that killed his own people, because LATER he said (p.44) it was only ONE of the hardest decisions he had to make on October 7th. What was THE most difficult decision he made that day; the decision greater than killing one’s own is not mentioned. To the authors credit, this book does on page 52-53 mention how Israel ignored plans for the Hamas incursion into Israel, but then once again calls those wanting to escape living in the Gazan concentration camp “terrorists”. On page 55, those physically trying to stop illegal settlers are called “terrorists” by a Shin Bet chief. Throughout the book if you demand freedom in the OPT, you are a terrorist and your goal is not freedom but comically “to destroy Israel.” To the authors credit the authors allow this sentence in the book “fences and fortification do not prevent war and do not guarantee quiet and security.” So why not stop with the fences and fortifications and make Israel a true democracy for everyone in a single state? On page 76, the authors say every Israeli home has a safe room – what a confession! – Israel is the ONLY place on the planet where Zionists need a safe room. So much for the fantasy that Israel is a safe place for Jews.

The author wonders why did October 7th happen? Could it have been the results of Israel’s 75+ years of illegal occupation? Or lack of rights for Palestinians in the OPT? Living under a cocktail of apartheid AND brutal settler-colonialism? Israel flouting international law for decades? Nah. This book won’t mention any backstory, or anything Israel ever did to provoke resistance. Instead, we are told “Israel did almost everything it could to avoid a war” and says Israel did that “because of a desire for peace and quiet” and “the desire of Israelis to achieve peace never faded.” Meanwhile: there has NEVER been an occupation in world history that wasn’t resisted by the occupied, but here the author wants us to believe Israel did nothing to provoke resistance. Israel has launched a violent assault on the occupied Palestinians every two years since 2005, yet the author says each violent assault was only done “reluctantly.” Many convicted domestic abusers and US war makers have also said they too only did it “reluctantly”.

The author then recounts the tired Hasbara canard that Israel is surrounded by Arabs “dedicated to a single goal – destroying the world’s only Jewish state”. The author says the toughest question is how to make sure October 7th never happens again. The easiest answer is a single democratic state just like what we have in the US, where everyone lives together with equal rights - or maybe dare stop Israel’s illegal occupation, but neither will be mentioned by the author. The author wants Israel to be the first occupier in human history to stop ALL forms of resistance w/o offering serious concessions to the occupied. This entire book is “How do we keep October 7th from happening again while continuing to do whatever the fuck we want to the occupied?” Good luck with that.

On page 20 the author even admits, “there will be readers who will accuse us of bias, partiality, and a lack of compassion for the loss of life and destruction in Gaza.” Yes, Yaakov, there will be. But Yaakov adds “Hamas in our view, is to blame.” Yaakov blames Hamas for violating ceasefires as though Israel doesn’t have a verifiable much larger history of violating ceasefires. Yaakov blames Hamas for both raping on October 7th and using human shields but those of us daring to look for either can’t find any evidence. But there ARE dozens of cases of Israel using human shields and raping Palestinian prisoners (even by trained Israeli dogs). There is no book by Moroccans defending the occupation of Western Sahara or Hindus justifying the occupation of Kashmir or, yet Israelis seem addicted to defending their own illegal occupation (Hasbara) mostly through the “logic” of “What are you going to believe, my testimony or the physical evidence?” Instead, this book tells you how Hamas “hides” among civilians (p.94), but never that Shin Bet is located deep in the residential area of Ramat Aviv, while IDF headquarters (p.22) is in the Kirya, “a densely populated civilian area in central Tel Aviv” – fact check it yourself. Sderot is identified by Yaakov as “most associated with Hamas attacks” but he won’t mention Sderot as land stolen from Palestinians, or that Hamas rockets are cheap and crudely built and rarely travel much further than Sderot or Ashkelon. Rockets, by definition, don’t have a guidance system so good luck aiming one. Israel on the other hand has plenty of missiles – if a “rocket” has a guidance system, it (by definition) becomes a missile. Bill Clinton, Charlie Sheen and Gene Simons were thus known for their pocket rockets because theirs (like Hamas’s) never revealed a guidance system.

“While Israel Slept” calls Palestinians “terrorists” a whopping 253 times (I counted) in a 310-page book while intentionally not admitting Israel having ever done a SINGLE act of terrorism. What was the 1946 Bombing of the King David Hotel? Or the Deir Yassin, Tantura, or Sabra & Shatila Massacres? Or the 2023-2025 Genocide in Gaza? To his credit, on page 47, the author strangely breaks rank and mentions, “400 Hamas men” instead of terrorists.

Zero evidence of rape by Palestinians on October 7th has been found even two years later yet the authors pulls this canard out on pages 6, 46, 49, 51, 70, and 154. Yaakov enjoys turning up the heat with conjecture with “They wanted a pogrom in the worst way possible” (how would HE know?) and writes October 7th was also done “to sow fear”. Yaakov won’t mention how 75+ years of Israeli occupation was ONLY made possible through “sowing fear” – people have never in history accepted an occupation that wasn’t backed up by force or FEAR of force. This single-minded book was like a caught adulterer saying, “Fuck the immorality of what I’m doing, how can I never get caught again?”

Hypocrisy: On page 84, they write “Hamas needed to pay for what it did” but nowhere here do they suggest Israel might have to pay for a single crime it has committed in 75+ years against an occupied people. On page 87 they write “the despicable enemy launched a barbaric murderous terror assault against children, women, men, and the elderly” yet nowhere is mentioned the far greater “murderous terror assault” death toll (Dahiya Doctrine) committed by Israel since October 7th. On page 91, we are told with a straight face, “There is no war more just than this one.” Jews fighting to stay alive in the Warsaw ghetto was apparently less just than Zionists fighting to keep other humans under illegal occupation? When an IDF soldier is killed defending the occupation (p.92) it is “tragic” and the authors add he was a “father of six” – John Wayne Gacy had two kids, did that make his serial murders any less odious? According to this book, the IDF always gives “notice weeks ahead” (p.94) of committing violence while there is zero evidence that that ALWAYS happens given the testimonies of thousands of Palestinians and ex-IDF since 10/7. On page 96 they write, “Hamas didn’t care about the children or about anyone” – gosh, I wonder if saying that was conjecture, instead that was treated as fact. On page 98, Hamas is called a “vile enemy who will do anything… even if it means sacrificing its own people.” That is the very definition of Israel’s Hannibal Directive, which top Israelis like Yoav Gallant have admitted to using on October 7th. So, Israel admits it has done this odious act, yet can’t provide evidence for its accusation that Hamas does it too? Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath, Zionists take the Hypocrite Oath. Zionism: where every accusation is a confession. On page 98, we are told you can’t trust any death toll figures coming out of Gaza, but won’t be told that Israel has killed over 240 journalists in Gaza trying to verify death toll figures, and makes it near impossible to let in foreign observers for further verification. Then on page 99, the authors say “accuracy matters” – yet, this is a book with intentionally ZERO footnotes, but plenty of Freudian projection and thinly veiled hypocrisy. Doubling down on page 99, the authors say with a straight face, “Unlike Israel’s enemies, the IDF has a code of conduct that works to ensure the fewest civilian casualties possible.” The IDF might have such a code but that doesn’t mean it is followed, according to facts on the ground (over 1,700 healthcare workers killed in Gaza since 10/7) and countless videos filmed by Palestinians. Anyone can easily watch Instagram and TikTok videos of returned Israeli hostages recounting warm humane treatment by Hamas captors, so fact check each conjecture online. The author says Hamas uses Israeli SIM cards to non-violently avoid detection on page 28, yet never mentions Israel actually killing many civilians through exploding pagers.

On page 100, the authors go on about Hamas tunnels running under civilian areas which they wrongly say makes mosques, schools and hospitals all military sites. First, the tunnels mostly bring in supplies which Israel denies occupied Gazans (even page 123 admits this). These “dangerous” supplies have included soap, shampoo, light bulbs, candles, matches, clothing, shoes, mattresses, blankets, cement, spices, chocolate, coffee, A4 paper, crayons, musical instruments, and toys (fact check this yourself). Second, Gaza is so small, and the vast majority of Gaza are civilians so it should surprise no one that tunnels for supplies would invariably run under civilian areas. Third, the authors blame Hamas for doing exactly what the Israeli military does – put military stuff in civilian areas. I hear you though, people who fantasize they are personally chosen by God (like other mass murderers David Koresh and Jim Jones did) are immune from accusations of double standards. On page 103, the authors say “Hamas refused to uphold its part of the bargain” but hypocritically won’t mention the many documented times Israel did the same. On page 105, October 7th is called a “pogrom” even though some of the Israelis killed that day were killed by other Israelis under the Hannibal Directive, statistically many Zionists are secular and nominally Jewish, and more than 10x more Palestinians than Zionists were killed after October 7th. This book discusses an occupying IDF soldier post 10/7 “holding back tears”, but not a word about occupied Palestinians in tears during a two-year genocide.

On page 109, there is talk of found documents on “how to interrogate Palestinians suspected of being gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual. The level of barbarism in the documents was shocking.” Yet zero evidence or footnotes is presented referring to these documents for fact checking just how “shocking”. On the next page they say “1,500 anti-Semitic books were also found” once again with no footnotes or evidence presented for fact-checkers. They wrote that one of those books “teaches kids how to murder Jews.” Zero evidence or footnote needed for such accusation. On page 113 and others, illegally occupied Gaza is called “an enemy state”. Page 115 says “evidence of atrocities accumulated” but this book won’t mention even one of the hundreds of atrocities committed by Israel since 10/7. Page 116 says this was a “war that had been forced upon Israel” as if 75+ years of illegal occupation by Israel wouldn’t naturally produce many acts of armed resistance. The same page (and p.122) repeats the canard that Hamas uses hostages as human shields when there is still no evidence of that, yet anyone can easily find repeated photographic evidence of Israel using human shields on Instagram and TikTok. We are told to have sympathy for an Israeli woman who couldn’t bury her husband (p.121) yet never are told here to have ANY sympathy for the tens of thousands of occupied Palestinians who can’t bury their dead family members found or still under the rubble. Page 148 has pure conjecture presented as fact when “Finkelman concluded from the experience that only fanatics obsessed by hate could dig such a complex underground network” – Good Lord, did Polish Jews build their tunnels in the Warsaw Ghetto because they were “fanatics obsessed with hate” or because they wanted freedom for their people? Did Vietnamese build tunnels in the 60’s as “fanatics obsessed by hate” or because they wanted freedom for their people? Did Palestinians build their tunnels as “fanatics obsessed by hate” or because they too wanted freedom (and basic goods and services) for their people? Anyone who merely fact checks, will find these authors constantly saying conjectural Hasbara 101 stuff – and seemingly intentionally so with the deliberate denial of professional footnotes.

On page 164, an Israeli says, “They hated us in their eyes” – always the fantasy that Palestinians only hate Israelis WITHOUT cause, and NOT for occupying them, depriving them of shelter, working hospitals, human rights, ease of movement through checkpoints, protection from armed settlers, or access to basic goods and services. On page 166, the authors are alarmed that back in the 1980’s Israelis found Arabic copies of Mein Kampf – in college I HAD to read Mein Kampf in the 1970’s for history class at SLC, does that make me also a terrorist? This book like most Hasbara dwells on the initial 1988 Hamas Charter knowing FULL WELL, that Charter was replaced in 2017 by an extremely reasonable Hamas Charter. Most Hasbara works by whipping up your emotion of disgust or hatred, therefore reasonable solutions can never be discussed or even acknowledged. Will the authors take Netanyahu to task for funding Hamas for over a decade? [This is easily fact checked in Times of Israel or the NYT, or Haaretz.] Or even clearly mention Netanyahu’s central role in funding the very thing the authors see as the greatest evil? No and no. The authors write, “Hamas is bent on Israel’s destruction”. If so, then why did Netanyahu, fund it? The author’s say, “when Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, Hamas took over” but intentionally does not tell us, “When Britain left in 1948, extreme Zionist elements took over.”

Good Stuff: To the authors credit, they admit “Israel is rapidly losing support among Democrats.” To the authors credit, they understand the coalition government means ministers can say more extreme things than Bibi does (p.296). And they called Ben-Gvir “one of the most extreme politicians ever to be elected in Israel.” Thank Yahweh, he’s not one of the authors’ heroes. Also, to the authors credit, they admit the terrorism of the Zionist “Haganah, Etzel (Irgun), and Lechi (Lehi).” And, to the authors credit, they were realists enough to understand, “Targeted killings can weaken and undermine an enemy, but they cannot defeat it.” In words, you cannot defeat resistance. Also, to the authors credit, they say “Netanyahu placed political survival above national interest” in delaying decisions that could has sped up the hostage deal and ceasefire. And they ALMOST accuse Netanyahu of funding Hamas for over ten years (blaming it instead on Qatar), and they freely admit Israel has been carrying out targeted assassinations (p.211-217), but then boldly show PRIDE in them for seven pages, brazenly never caring that they clearly violate international law. The authors are proud (p.215) that Israel booby-trapped phones in 1996. A few of the perks of fantasizing your group was personally chosen by God; yet if anyone outside of Israel commits their own TAs in Israel, the patented Israeli Hypocritical Oath will be quickly deployed. The authors strangely showed pride (p.217) in killing Hamas’s “most moderate senior member.” If Israel had ANY interest in peace, it would be insanity to take out Hamas moderates, but it makes perfect sense if you want the world to think all Hamas is extreme (after conveniently murdering all their moderates). The authors says, one group of Hamas leaders “were responsible for an INCREDIBLE number of murdered Israelis” – if a maximum of 1,200 Israelis dead is an “incredible” number what then should we call a minimum of over 72,500 Palestinians dead? “Unfathomable”? If occupied Hamas with its lesser body count is a “terror” group, what is the occupier IDF? It’s so hard to take this book seriously.

This book explains (p.290) that Israel would be toast w/o the US billions in aid, the US made F-35, F-15, F-16, the C-130 transport planes, Apache helicopters and Black Hawks. The authors particularly worry about the lack of spare parts. Hey, when you are an openly rogue settler-colonial state, illegal use of weaponry is somehow ok when your occupied keep whining about wanting freedom, drinkable water, or flour. This whole book could be reduced to: “How dare ANYONE resist illegal occupation?” But name ANY illegal occupation in history that DIDN’T involve armed resistance? Regarding October 7th, this book will NOT tell you that under Geneva Convention Protocol I (1977), resistance to occupation is legal, including armed resistance. Or that the UN Charter also recognizes the right of occupied peoples to armed resistance (UN GA Resolution 2625). Of course, neither side is allowed to attack civilians.

review finishes in comment section due to length...

[Adam Hummel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cannot recommend highly enough.

[CASPER HILEMAN · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the near defeat of the Yom Kippur War of 1973, Israel did not learn to heed the warnings of the most well-developed intelligence agency in the region. From the skies, land and, sea six thousand Hamas terrorists led multi-pronged attacks. With the purpose of attacking both military and civilian targets. This is the story of the complex tragedy of war in the Middle East.

[BenAbe · Rating 4 out of 5]

It can safely be assumed that the main target of this work would be Israelis first, and everyone interested in understanding what happened on the morning of that bloody Saturday second. Yet it is a shame that a third target audience will most likely never read it, and in my opinion, it is the one that needs to read it more than anyone else.


The book attempts a diagnosis of the intelligence failure on the part of the Israeli security/intelligence apparatus in predicting the events of October 7 by examining a series of poor government decisions, faulty intelligence gathering, and flawed processing of that intelligence, as well as the various motives that prevented these insights from being fully exploited. The analysis spans decades and covers the major milestones in the clashes between the Israeli government and Hamas, along with the targeted strikes that marked the years leading up to that Saturday morning.


The authors’ main point is that Israel misread the situation and then drew mistaken operational conclusions, which blinded her to the intentions of the other side. We see that, despite mountains of evidence and repeated red flags raised by intelligence officers in the days and even hours before the attack, these warnings were largely ignored due to a flawed assessment by the different intelligence and security services that: first, Hamas had been deterred by Israeli precision strikes in previous years, and second, that Hamas was more concerned with maintaining stability to keep the flow of Qatari cash into the Strip. This perception was reinforced by the Israeli government, which appears to have misplaced its trust in the idea that lifting certain restrictions, allowing the flow of money, and increasing the number of Palestinians permitted to work in Israel would raise the standard of living in Gaza. The belief was that by doing so they could effectively buy quiet. In the end, that assumption proved false, as it turned out that "Some of the workers who were allowed in by Israel helped provide Hamas with intelligence on the kibbutzim attacked on October 7—mapping out where people lived, which homes had pets, and more." Not to mention that Hamas was channeling the funds flowing into the Strip (whether through Qatari aid overseen by Israel or its own illicit funding networks) to strengthen its arsenal with precision rockets and improved weaponry in preparation for a future clash with Israel. What shocked me while reading this is that all of it unfolded under Israel’s nose. Israel knew that Hamas was rearming and had some awareness of its tunnel activity. In previous clashes, such as those in 2014 and other operations, Hamas had already used tunnels to infiltrate Israeli territory. Israel therefore recognized the threat and even tried to neutralize parts of the network before October 7, but it failed to grasp the vastness and sophistication of the underground system. It also knew that Hezbollah was building up its firepower, yet in both cases, it chose not to act preemptively, fearing such moves could ignite a broader war.


It is easy to fall under the spell of the common narrative that portrays Israel as driven by a maniacal urge for war and bloodshed, a caricature that bears little resemblance to reality. This conceived demonology, in which the current Israeli government (or any Israeli government for that matter) is cast as its chief villain, reduces a complex situation to a simplified moral landscape of black and white while doing little to deepen our understanding. In truth, Israeli governments, including that of Netanyahu, were often hesitant to commit to ground invasions because of political calculations concerning the potential loss of life and the backlash such actions could provoke from the Israeli public.

For instance, during the 2014 war, Netanyahu was reluctant to deploy ground forces at first and did so only after pressure mounted when Hamas fighters began emerging from tunnels on the Israeli side. Even then, the invasion was limited and did not reach the heart of the Strip to dismantle the tunnel systems there. These and other limited engagements only served to embolden Hamas, which came to see Israeli restraint as weakness. For Hamas, the benefits of initiating hostilities seemed high, while the costs remained low, since Israel appeared unwilling to pursue a complete dismantling of the group. This pattern repeated itself, as Israeli reluctance was interpreted by Hamas as weakness, encouraging further bold moves. At the same time, Israel operated under the false assumption that a few targeted airstrikes would be enough to create deterrence and contain the threat from Gaza’s armed factions.


The authors conclude by outlining different steps that should be taken to prevent another October 7 and to respond more effectively to similar threats in the future.


Now, circling back to that third audience I mentioned in the introduction. reading this book has been deeply insightful (even if it is not an exhaustive portrayal of the roots of the conflict), What emerges is not only a study of Israeli failures but also a revealing picture of Hamas’s missed opportunities. Hamas had every chance to raise living standard for Gazans, to build institutions, and to improve civil life in the Strip. Instead, it chose to channel its resources into tunnels and weapons, prioritizing terror over progress. This was partly enabled by Israel’s policy of separation, which mistakenly viewed Hamas as a useful counterweight to the Palestinian Authority. The assumption was that as long as Gaza was ruled by a designated terror group, the creation of a unified Palestinian state would remain improbable. Yet this does not mean that Israel acted as a collaborator or welcomed the attacks, as conspiracy theorists like to claim. That idea is absurd. Israel’s failure was not intentional but the result of a lack of vision and a mix of short-term political thinking, poor foresight, and flawed intelligence assessments that together shaped this outcome. The authors do not spare any side in their criticism, particularly regarding the politicization of national security. Still, it is essential to maintain moral clarity: Israel is a democracy with an elected government, whereas Hamas remains a terrorist organization.

And even though there are extremist voices within the Israeli government, it must be understood that their presence and toleration are byproducts of political necessity, since they are part of a coalition whose collapse would bring down the government. This stands in sharp contrast with Hamas, where radicalization is not a flaw but a defining feature of a system in which no real plurality exists.
It is useful here to quote something the authors say toward the end, because it helps clarify part of the misunderstanding that fuels the absurd accusations we often see repeated:

"There are several reasons why media strategy does not work in Israel. First and foremost is the country’s political structure. With a coalition system, in which every party holds the keys to the future of the government, the prime minister does not really have the ability to enforce strict messaging or to discipline dissenting ministers. A coalition allows Netanyahu to say that Israel is not going to resettle the Gaza Strip, and then senior ministers in the cabinet can say the opposite. He can say that Israel is doing all it can to prevent civilian casualties, and then a minister can come out and foolishly call to nuke the Gaza Strip."



The book is informative and easy to follow. It offers useful insights and leaves the reader with plenty to think about long after finishing it.


Books I'd recommend along with this one : 'Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How It Created the Modern Middle East by 'Uri Kaufman, And 'Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East' by Michael Oren


Rating: 4/5

[Carol Dimitriou · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent explanation of why Israel was surprised by Hamas Genocidal terrorist war that killed and abducted innocent civilians in the October 7, 2023 war. The mistakes of the past by Israel's government and military leaders need to be corrected in order to prevent this happening again. The authors have specific suggestions for what needs to be done to protect Israel Israel will never be totally safe, because they are surrounded by enemies that desire the annihilation of Israel. But there must be changes to limit the devastation.

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

As this book was authored by two citizens of Israel I was not under the disillusionment that this would be a comprehensive picture of everything that has happened. I expected some bias and I was not wrong. There are several problematic statements I found in the book. However, this is a one sided perspective of a very complex issue. It was interesting to gain insight into that one perspective but I do think critical thinking is needed while reading.

Thanks you St. Martin’s Press for the complimentary copy.

[Steven Z. · Rating 5 out of 5]

By now I can’t imagine that anyone living in our media dominated world has not heard of Hamas’ brutal attack against Israel on October 7, 2023. The Israeli reaction to the attack has resulted in the destruction of large parts of the Gaza Strip and the death of tens of thousands of Palestinians according to the Gazan Health Ministry and accusations of genocide. This barbaric attack carried out by Hamas and other affiliated terrorist groups, took the lives of at least 1,219 people and led to the taking of 251 hostages, most of them Israeli civilians.

As of today, the remaining hostages who are alive and the bodies of those who perished have finally been returned. Even though the Trump administration has brokered a ten step peace plan and America’s Arab allies have promised to help fund the rebuilding of Gaza, based on past history, Hamas’ continued slaughter of anyone who opposes them, and the intransigence of right wing politicians in Israel the odds of a major settlement are from my perspective almost nil.

The current skepticism surrounding a meaningful settlement rests on a number of factors which center around Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whose political career is on the line. Many have argued that Netanyahu continued the war even as Israeli generals argued that there were no more meaningful targets. Netanyahu who remains under indictment in Israel may have kept the war going to postpone further legal action against himself even as he tried to alter the Israeli judicial system to offset any further prosecution.

The other aspect of Netanyahu’s culpability rests on his government’s prewar policies, particularly his actions toward Hamas. Critics, including former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, argue that Netanyahu's long-standing policy of allowing the transfer of Qatari funds to Gaza in order to prop up Hamas's rule and "buy" quiet ultimately backfired, allowing the group to strengthen and eventually launch the October 7th attack. Further, multiple Israeli security officials, including the heads of the IDF and Shin Bet have admitted their failure to prevent the attack, with Netanyahu being criticized for initially deflecting personal responsibility onto the intelligence services. Warnings from within the military and intelligence apparatus were reportedly disregarded or not acted upon by Netanyahu’s government. However, the larger question is how did we get here, as opposed to where we are today.

A number of partial answers to this puzzle have been tackled by Yaakov Katz, a former editor and chief of the Jerusalem Post and Amir Bohbot, a journalist and lecturer at Ben-Gurion University in their provocative new book, WHILE ISRAEL SLEPT: HOW HAMAS SURPRISED THE MOST POWERFUL MILITARY IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

The word “partial” is used because there is no definitive answer provided in the book as to why Israel was caught so unaware on October 7, 2023. The best the authors can offer is that there was a failure at all levels of command and leadership as they responded to situations filled with chaos. In trying to ascertain why the attack occurred when it did and why Israeli leadership responded the way it did the authors looked at the mindset of decision makers as 2023 they evolved. The basic problem is that Israel believed it was invincible and that Hamas was incapable of launching such a massive assault. Israeli policy was one of containing Hamas, but by October 2023 that was no longer possible.

The policy of containment dates to Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2006 under the government of Ariel Sharon. From that time Israel, according to the authors responded to the attacks, be they rocket or terror attacks in Israel proper with incursions into Gaza, refusing to commit to an all-out invasion for fear of too many Israeli military and Palestinian casualties. This would send a message to Hamas that Israel was afraid to launch a major operation against Gaza. Another factor that developed was the appearance and growth of Hezbollah as a major fighting force in possession of thousands of rockets on the Lebanese border which was a proxy of Iran. Israel’s attention was also diverted to the Iranian nuclear program. Despite intelligence to the contrary the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) was caught in a dangerous complacency, believing that Hamas was more interested in a long-term truce and economic stability rather than war. These arguments are well developed based on Israeli documents, interviews with Israeli national security and military officials, and their own reporting over the years.

It is clear that there was enough intelligence that Israeli officials should have been more proactive before the attack took place. The authors begin their account describing the story of seven female soldiers who were part of an IDF unit called “tatzpitaniyot,” Hebrew for observers. These young women, ages nineteen and twenty, were stationed at the Nachal Oz base, a few hundred yards from the Gaza Strip border. These soldiers were tasked to monitor every inch of the Israel-Gaza border. They employed the available technology and their own intuition that something was wrong. They reported their findings to their superiors and were not listened to – they would be killed in the Hamas attack. The authors conclude there was no operational plan for a full-scale offensive in Gaza, and no detailed strategy in the event of war.

The authors ask many pertinent questions, one of which is why did the attack occur when it did. With the Abraham Accords brokered by the first Trump administration normalizing Israeli relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco in 2020, Hamas did not want Saudi Arabia to join in the normalization process as it seemed they were about to do so by the end of 2023. Since Egypt and Jordan had already abandoned Hamas this may have contributed to the decision to act. Further, Israeli domestic politics may have played a key role. Hamas always wanted to make the Israeli people less resilient which Netanyahu’s plan to overhaul the Israeli judicial system to protect himself as he was under indictment was sure to do. Netanyahu’s action provoked the Israeli left seeing the Prime Minister’s actions as a threat to democracy resulting in massive protests throughout Israel and threats by Israeli reserve Air force pilots not to fly missions and by military personnel to do the same. The split in Israeli society certainly contributed to Hamas’ calculations. Hamas’ decision was developed over a long period of time, but its mindset was clear that eventually they would launch a massive attack, an attack they had been preparing for at least a decade.
According to the authors the crisis began on October 6 when the IDF’s premier signal collection unit that monitored activity in Gaza had crashed. Possibly a cyber-attack to blind Israeli surveillance. Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency received troubling alerts on their system but did little in response even as Shin Bet Chief Ronen Bar was told, “there is an unclear preparation by Hamas for something” as its leadership was moving toward its bunkers in tunnels. Analysts concluded it was just a “military exercise” not a full scale attack.

The authors effectively lays out an almost hour by hour description of the information garnered by AMAN, the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate and how they reacted. The problem for any Israeli response was it needed to be done without Hamas being aware of it – they didn’t want to burn intelligence assets or push Hamas to attack if it was only a training exercise as they had done in the past. In addition, Israel did not have one human asset among thousands of Hamas operatives waiting to attack.

Despite intense communication among Israel’s national security apparatus on October 6, the government was caught between the idea Hamas was engaged in a military exercise or was about to launch a low level attack against Israel. This inability to discern what Hamas was up to would have dire consequences as under the cover of 1300 rockets, over 3000 terrorists crossed into Israel at 60 locations.

The authors devote a considerable amount of time laying out and analyzing what Hamas’ leadership was planning and how sophisticated there approach was in developing their plans. Over a decade Hamas operatives, including Gazans who were allowed to work in Israel developed exacting intelligence including maps of kibbutzim, IDF bases, offices of senior commanders, weapons depots etc. Further, carrying out the ideas of Yahya Sinwar they had evaluated the state of the Israeli psyche and developed a plan in a sense to enter into the minds of the Israeli public and make them fear Hamas and force get them to turn against their government as terror attacks increased over the years, and culminating it with a massive assault which came to be October 7.

The chapter that explores the biography, thought process, and hatred toward Israel of Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza is perceptive and provides the reader with insights into a terrorist’s mind and how he would carry out his beliefs. The authors trace his ideological development, particularly as it relates to Israel and its people. His imprisonment for decades allowed him to study Israel, learning Hebrew and developing the ability to think like an Israeli. His release from prison with 1026 other terrorists in return for Galid Shalit, a captured Israeli soldier allowed him to eventually make his way to Gaza, work his way up the Hamas chain of command, and become their ideological leader and convince his compatriots to go along with his goals of revenge and destruction of Israel.

Once Sinwar was released other events allowed Hamas to expand its military preparedness. The arrival of the Arab spring in January 2011 brought to power Mohammed Morsi, a member of the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt which opened up the Egyptian-Gazan tunnel complex allowing Hamas to import massive amounts of material, weapons, and building equipment allowing them to expand their tunnel network, military industrial production, and in effect enhance a tunnel complex which was 40-70 meters under Gaza and 300 miles in length. In 2014 Israel responded to an increase in terror attacks and rockets with Operation Protective Edge. By focusing close to the Israel-Gaza border and not launching an invasion, the Israeli government sent the wrong message. Sinwar and his cohorts were convinced that Israel would not hit Hamas hard for fear of casualties. In addition, Sinwar was able to convince Israel that he was committed to improving Palestinian economic conditions, needed to continue to collect subsidies for Qatar, to the point Israel believed Hamas was “deterred,” a term that appears repeatedly among Israeli officials. According to Charles Lane in his Wall Street Journal book review of September 16, 2025; “The Israeli government persuaded itself instead that improving economic conditions, or “facilitating proper civilian life in the Gaza strip,” as one intelligence official put it, would give Gazans a material stake in peace and, by extension, induce pragmatism in Hamas. Israel allowed the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars from Qatar to Gaza—much of which the terror group diverted into tunnel building and salaries for its militants.”

There are other important chapters that provide interesting and surprising aspects of Hamas’ development. The chapter that describes the tunnel network that Hamas created is eye opening. They built an entire world underground with tunnels at different levels depending on their purpose. The thoroughness, sophistication, ingenuity, and efficiency of the various types of tunnels amazes, i.e., administrative, attack, logistical tunnels, something that was unimaginable. They integrated their tunnel network as a key component of their military strategy. This was all accomplished under Israel’s nose. Soldiers and civilians heard or felt something was happening below, but officials did little to oppose it.

The Israelis had to develop a new concept of warfare to offset the approach that Hamas employed. Fighting underground was something Israel had never encountered, especially as the tunnels were under homes, apartment buildings, hospitals, mosques, and schools which allowed Hamas fighters to hide and then jump out and attack IDF soldiers. In fact, Hamas’s leadership tunnel bunker was under the al-Shifa hospital. Israel was able to develop Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create a digital map that included all the tunnels which became invaluable. The author’s description is fascinating.

The Netanyahu government and the Prime Minister in particular believed Hamas was happy with their monthly transfer of financial assistance from Qatar which was provided with the government’s blessing and were not interested in escalation. The Netanyahu government and intelligence services may have thought it knew its enemy’s intentions. But it was effectively deceived and found out the opposite of its beliefs was true. There were deep flaws in the way Aman thought it understood Hamas. Aman failed to grasp Hamas’ intentions and mistakenly believed that the organization’s leadership wanted a truce rather than war. On the operational level, Israeli intelligence grossly underestimated the scale of Hamas’ plan, even though they had in their possession the “Jericho Plan” that provided clues as to what Hamas might implement. Lastly, on a tactical level, the IDF’s belief that its border defenses would prevent an attack was inadequate. The so-called “iron wall” erected along the border at the cost of over $1 billion was believed to be impenetrable. The authors conclude everything and everyone were wrong – the idea that a fanatical Islamist terror group could be contained and Hamas had been deterred and wanted quiet is tough to accept with hindsight.

I agree with Charles Lane’s conclusions in September 16, 2025, review that “Pondering his dream of an Islamist state erected on the ruins of the Jewish one, Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar observed all of this from Gaza. He sensed that Israel was distracted and divided, its strategists in the grip of an errant conceptzia. He brilliantly fed those illusions through disinformation and deception, while pursuing his phenomenally detailed long-term plan. As Messrs. Katz and Bohbot imply the bloody assault on Israel was an intelligence failure by Israel as well as an intelligence triumph for Hamas.

It was an ironic outcome for a nation helmed by Mr. Netanyahu. He had correctly told the United Nations General Assembly in 2009 to beware “the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to sleep until danger nearly overtakes them.” He quoted Winston Churchill on the “want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong.”

Messrs. Katz and Bohbot conclude their book with well-taken recommendations to help Israel’s political, military and intelligence institutions prevent another such debacle. But there’s no organizational cure for human nature, with its tendencies toward groupthink and confirmation bias. “The unfortunate habit” is a stubborn one. Even the most vigilant nations struggle to break it.”

[Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this book as I was interested in the topic, and the authors, reporters for the Jerusalem Post, were well placed to provide insights on this important event. However, the book was shitty. Why? First, the writing and editing was horrendous. Second, the authors did not tamp down their biases to the point where I felt I could trust them.

Let’s talk about the bad writing and editing. This book was plain hard to read just because of shitty writing and editing.

At times, the writing was so awkward that I wondered if it had originally been written in Hebrew and then translated into English. “In a tragic twist of fate, Tamir Adar, the nephew of Dr. Yuval Bitton, the prison doctor who had initially treated Sinwar, was killed on October 7, and his body was abducted by Hamas.” In English, one does not abduct bodies or other non-sentient beings. The book is filled with lots of awkward phrasing like this, something that ought to be a bit embarrassing for St. Martin’s Press, otherwise a well-reputed publisher.

Some of this shitty editing is just sloppiness.

In three separate passages in the book, we are told that a Gazan working in Israel makes “ten times” as much as when they work in Gaza.

In one passage, the authors say, “In one incident, Boanish approached a seemingly deserted home, only to hear strange sounds coming from the safe room, the room that every Israeli home has, which is made of fortified concrete to protect against missile attacks.” In fact, lots of Israeli homes do not have safe rooms. Post-1992, most Israeli homes had to be built with safe rooms, though many apartments do not have them, as is also true of homes built before 1992. This kind of sloppiness is odd, as these are the kinds of things that one would have expected the reporters from Israel’s lead paper to have fact checked this.

At the end of the introduction, the final sentence is: “This book is a journey just like the one Israel has been on since it was founded as a state. We start the story at the beginning—on the night of October 6.” Then, the first sentence of Chapter 1 is: “Yoav Gallant woke up early on October 7. ” Wait, I thought we were going to talk about the night of October 6th, why are you jumping to the morning of October 7th? These kinds of mistakes indicate that the authors and the editors did not do enough revisions and were not thoughtful when they did revise.

A bigger editing problem is that this book has no discernable structure. Having read the book, I don’t actually have a clear idea of why October 7th happened? When the book begins, we dive almost immediately into the level of the tactical. There is little discussion of the higher level politics. Was Bibi responsible for taking his eye off the ball? Or was it the military that was to blame? I can’t tell you because the authors do not tell us.

In the Conclusion, the authors offer some suggestions as to answers for these questions, but none of those are backed up in the body of the book. In the Conclusion, they mention that Bibi fatally weakened Israel by trying to push through his stupid reforms. Fine, but why did they not discuss those judicial reforms and the protests they stoked anywhere in the first couple of hundred pages of the book?

Finally, this book is damaged by the clear bias of the authors. When I picked up the book, I realized that these authors were Israeli citizens, writing for the Jerusalem Post, and would likely be sympathetic to Israelis more than Palestinians. However, I expected them, as journalists, to be able to bind those biases so that they did not interfere in their analysis.

They refer to Hamas operatives as “terrorists” when they are really just soldiers in a semi-state or pseudo-state. They refer to October 7th as “pogrom,” when it is really just war between two separate states that hate each other (as opposed to the pogroms in Russia where mobs utilized the state to massacre nearly defenseless Jews).

They use circumlocutions like “eliminated 19 terrorists” to describe the killings of Palestinians (“Boanish and his men eliminated 19 terrorists”), but they use emotive words to describe the killing of Israeli soldiers (“Eshel apparently lived for another few hours until she and fifteen of her fellow soldiers were brutally murdered…”) The use of these different words implies that the authors see different values in the deaths (and thus the lives) of people based only on their ethnicity.

Sometimes, shitty editing and the authors’ bias comes together and I cannot tell which is which. In the beginning of the book, the authors complain that Hamas uses photographers to try to win the information war: “According to the documents, Hamas leadership viewed the “photographer” as a central and strategic role, one just as important as the fighter, since the material filmed could be used to create Palestinian propaganda and incite the local population against Israel.” What is the issue that they are complaining about? That Hamas is trying to influence the outside world? Unlike all other militaries?

All militaries try to win the information war, something they cheerily encourage Israel to do better in the Conclusion: “As everyone knows today, Israeli wars have a minimum of three fronts: the battlefield in Gaza/Lebanon, the Israeli home front (which is attacked by missiles), and the world stage—in the media and at international institutions like the United Nations—where Israeli military legitimacy is under attack. There are several reasons why media strategy does not work in Israel. First and foremost is the country’s political structure. With a coalition system, in which every party holds the keys to the future of the government, the prime minister does not really have the ability to enforce strict messaging or to discipline dissenting ministers.” Why, other than they are biased, is it okay for Israel to partake in information warfare, but not Hamas?

This book has some good information. I had no idea that the Bank of China and Beijing regulators played a role in laundering illegal PA cash. But these interesting parts are fatally crippled by the shitty editing and the authors’ biases.

[Vineeth Nair · Rating 5 out of 5]

An authentic account of Oct 7 terror attacks that rocked Israel. Narrates as to how Hamas managed to surprise IDF despite a round the clock surveillance entailing high tech fences, underground tunnel barriers and whole lot of other tech savvy gadgets Israel placed on its Gaza border. A real page turner and a must read.

[Steve Cran · Rating 5 out of 5]

October 7, 2023, marked a historic failure. Hamas, a terrorist organization, executed a devastating surprise attack on Israel—the region’s most powerful military. Thousands of terrorists breached the border under cover of intense rocket fire. Some sailed over the fence on hang gliders, landing behind Israeli lines to massacre civilians. Others stormed Zikim Beach in rubber dinghies (a few were intercepted by the Israeli Navy). Still more blasted through the border wall with explosives, speeding in pickup trucks to take hostages, kill indiscriminately, and commit atrocities.
How could this happen? That is the central question While Israel Slept rigorously examines.
The authors argue that Israel underestimated Hamas for years, fixating instead on Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. After withdrawing from Gaza in 2005–2006, Israel dismantled settlements and human intelligence networks, relying heavily on technology: border sensors, drones, and software monitoring Gaza’s communications. The system flagged unusual activity—like Hamas turning on Israeli SIM cards—but terrorists routinely staged drills with rockets and cell phones, desensitizing Israeli analysts. Like the frog in slowly heating water, Israel grew complacent.
Warning signs were ignored. Software monitoring Gaza malfunctioned in the months before the attack. Hamas planted explosives along the border wall during protests, undetected. Intelligence dismissed reports of Palestinians training to overrun homes and take hostages. Even when rocket alerts spiked on October 7, many in the IDF assumed it was another drill.
The book traces Hamas’s evolution from its 1980s origins as a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated charity, founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (with Yahya Sinwar among its early members), into a full-fledged terror group. Israel initially tolerated it, seeing it as a counterweight to the PLO. Sinwar, who spent 22 years in Israeli prisons, studied his enemy closely—learning Hebrew and IDF tactics. He repeatedly warned of an “Al-Aqsa Flood,” a mass infiltration to kill, kidnap, and force prisoner releases. These threats were dismissed.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies also contributed. To stabilize Gaza, he facilitated Qatari funds, believing economic incentives would reduce violence. Instead, the money fueled Hamas’s military buildup. The group raised millions through U.S.- and Europe-based “charities,” dummy companies, and a dedicated Mossad unit (Harpoon) struggled to disrupt the flow.
Hamas built an extensive tunnel network beneath Gaza, but on October 7, they attacked overland—exploiting Israel’s overconfidence in its border defenses.
The authors conclude with sobering lessons: intelligence must prioritize human sources over tech, threats cannot be downplayed for political convenience, and complacency is fatal. To prevent another October 7, Israel must relearn vigilance.
A gripping, meticulously reported account—essential reading for understanding one of the greatest intelligence failures in modern history.

[Michael L. Jensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful Review

Non-apologetic and insightful, this book examines the Hamas-led sneak attack on 7 October 2023 against Israel and its aftermath. No country is immune to division and it’s particularly damaging when that division is encouraged in the name of maintaining “balance.”

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the best book I’ve read discussing the lead up to, and failures of, October 7. It goes into the perfect amount of detail to inform, but not bore, the reader. It loses a star for some poor editing (multiple repeated points) and some clear political shot-taking.

[M Hixenbaugh · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a disorganized mess. The narrative (timeline) is disjointed and occasionally contradictory. “While Israel Slept” reads like a hastily produced and poorly edited work. As military history it is sorely lacking in expertise and context. There are many thoughtful and well-researched books on the contemporary Middle East and the Israel/Palestine conflicts so this meandering and very myopic book can be safely avoided. Accurate, blow-by-blow accounts of the horrible October 7th attacks can be found in various journals and magazines and they are much better organized, more comprehensively researched and provide much needed context. This book is neither reliable journalism nor thoughtfully presented history. Many Jews and Israelis were brutally murdered on October 7, 2023 and this book does them a great disservice.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a clear-eyed examination of the background of events that caused the massive failure of the IDF to undervalue human intelligence and thinking that did not fit the political agenda that led to the brutal massacre on October 7th. Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot examine the history of parts of the IDF, Shin Bet, and Mossad relevant to the issues and structural problems that conflicted with policy and politics. It’s not dry reading, but solid, thoughtful reflection on various events and the authors do make recommendations for serious change in the last chapter that everyone who supports Israel should read. They look and the right and left in Israeli politics and Israel's relationship with America in balanced and instructive ways. I highly recommend.

[Elyssa Schmier · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fantastic! Almost like a 9/11 Commission written by two Israel’s top journalists. Hamas caused October 7th. But it’s very important to evaluate what the Israeli government, military, intelligence community, and society did that made that surprise attack possible. Lots of surprising and sad content in here showing far too many missed opportunities to stop October 7th from ever happening.

In order to support israel in this moment, we also must be able to evaluate where they went astray.

[Regina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read. It is researched and organized in a brilliant you are there way. it reads like fiction because the truth is so horrifying that you don't want to believe it. how did this happen is the name of the game. Read this and draw your own conclusions. Just read it.

[Alex Shrugged · Rating 4 out of 5]

On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists crossed the border from Gaza into Israel murdering civilian men, women and children and began a war with Israel (if it ever ended). The terrorists also attacked legitimate military bases in Israel. Whether you think of a war as legitimate or not, military targets and military combatants are usually involved fighting each other. Civilians often die in a war, but deaths of civilians are usually considered collateral damage and not the usual legitimate targets in war.

FYI, I was given this book by a relative of one of the authors. We don't really know each other. I was attending a religious event (Sukkot) and he was giving out this book. I spoke to him briefly. I do not feel obligated to give this book a better rating than what it deserves based on that meeting. On the other hand, I am Jewish and I support Israel, but even if I wasn't a supporter, I would still think of Hamas as a vicious terrorist organization. I base that opinion of Hamas on what I have read about it outside of this book.

This book begins with a more personal point of view of that day on the Israeli side. It was obviously designed this way to grab the emotions. The book continued in more detail, outlining the probable reasons why Israel missed the prelude to the invasion along with some history and brief biographies of the people involved.

Any problems with this book? Grabbing the emotions in the beginning was expected and it was successful, but it was also somewhat of an issue because in the following chapters, many of the points that were made in that first part were repeated. While I would expect some repetition simply to remind the reader of certain facts in a complex subject, it was a little bit too much. I don't blame the authors since it is their job to write. It is the editor's job (at least SOME editor's job) to cut out any excess and make sure the general structure and flow of the book makes sense. This book made sense, but it could have been made shorter or the material could have been interspersed more effectively. Since this book was written by two authors I suspect that they contributed their parts in essay fashion and that may have contributed to the excessive backtracking of the narrative.

Other than that, I was grateful for the information this book provided. Although I knew in a general sense what had happened, learning about some of the political problems Israel had and how that effected the intelligence and military policy was unknown to me. Also the protests that individual military people made to their orders was unknown to me and while I think that the military should follow orders, those orders should be questioned if they seem to go against the community standard for moral conduct in a given situation. That means... I don't expect Israel to adhere to United States moral standards. I expect them to adhere to their own moral standards and I don't like to second guess the people on the ground.

The authors provided suggestions on how to avoid the horrific error in intelligence and military response in the future. My opinion is that those suggestions, for the most part, would be ineffective if implemented at all. The main problem seems to be the short-term view of the politicians and that can't change unless the entire political structure is changed... that is... a change from a parliamentary system to one more like the United States. Since I know that is unlikely to happen in the extreme, I expect a lot more people to die when they didn't have to.

I will probably read this book again next Sukkot.

[Curtis Edmonds · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the things that I have to keep on telling myself as a book reviewer is that the book is what the book is and not what I thought the book was going to be. It is not THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT, although I expect that eventually we're going to get something like that out of the Israeli government, although it may be classified or something like that. (If you haven't read the report you should; probably the best-written thing out of the executive branch of the United States federal government since the Gettysburg Address.) It is not 102 MINUTES, which I picked up this spring from a used-book pile and read not too long ago, which is a tick-tock of the events taking place in the Twin Towers on 9/11. It is somewhere in between those two books, with elements of both.

WHILE ISRAEL SLEPT raises the question in its subtitle: just how did Hamas manage to catch the Israeli security apparatus on its back foot? The answers are "it's complicated," and "we didn't think they would do something that foolish and self-destructive," and "hey, buddy, we also have the West Bank and Hezbollah and the Houthis and the Syrians and the Iranians to deal with, cut us some slack, y'know."

My notes as follows:

1. Organization is a problem here. The single greatest problem with WHILE ISRAEL SLEPT is that it moves effortlessly up and down the timeline. Sometimes it's a tick-tock, but then it goes backwards and forwards in time and it's not clear why it does that. It's moderately annoying.

2. I have been following the story of the Gaza conflict as best I could since it started, and I think (for a Southern Baptist who's never been east of Point Pleasant, New Jersey) that I have a pretty good handle on things. (This is largely due to listening to Dan Senor's podcast, which I recommend.) If you're not as conversant then you will almost certainly learn a lot, which is good, but I know a good bit of this stuff and it was kind of stale. (And obviously, things move kind of fast and some elements have been overtaken by events.) The part that I didn't know about (and would like to hear a podcast episode about, Dan Senor, talking to you) is the Israeli penetration of the Hamas banking system, which ended up as a wet firework. Pity.

3. Going back to the Senor point, it wasn't that long ago that Defense Minister Gallant was on Senor's podcast, claiming that he was arguing in early October that the Mossad should pull the trigger on the booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies at that time, allowing Israel to cripple Hezbollah early on in the conflict and take them out first before Hamas. No discussion about that in this book, you would have thought there would be.

4. The authors do make an excellent point about how the Israelis are congenitally bad at public relations, and that this needs to change. I don't know that there's any force on earth that could stop the American campus tentifada from saying stupid things and believing stupid things, but at least someone could try and anyway you shouldn't let Douglas Murray have all the fun.

What I think about this book is that it's more-or-less a buffet. Some of it's good, some of it's kind of warmed-over, some of it you can skip. There are a few good items on the steam table but you have to figure out what they are., and the layout is a bit confusing. A worthwhile read but not wholly recommended.

[ManOfLaBook.com · Rating 4 out of 5]

For more reviews and bookish posts visit: https://www.ManOfLaBook.com

While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East by Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot is part history (from an Israeli perspective) and part biting analysis of how Israel screwed up. Both Mr. Katz and Bohbot are journalists with knowledge and insight into Israel’s intelligence community, Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and government.

This book is part history, part PR, but mostly a biting criticism of Israel‘s intelligence apparatus, political leadership and Bibi Netanyahu. The narrative shows, in detail, how warnings were missed and how Israel simply ignored Hamas’ growing power and threat ability.
All of it done in the open.

I’ve listened to many books and lectures about the intelligence community in general, and it seems to be conscious among connected people who are from the outside looking in that the community weighs intelligence they’ve gotten from expensive means, satellites for example, more than other means, newspaper headlines seem to be the classic example.

This was obvious after the October 7 attack when it was revealed that IDF commanders had been given, time after time, intelligence that something was going to happen and simply ignored it. The same is true for intelligent analysts and politicians.

The strength of While Israel Slept by Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot is the few pages at the end. A hard look at where Israel screwed up and did not realize that an attack was imminent. Especially the point about how bad Israel is on the PR diplomatic front and is as painfully obvious has been getting its butt kicked by the Palestinians on that front (and seriously, kudos to them).

I just wish the book spent a bit more time how Israel treated the Gazans, and that the timeline of events would be for better contexts. That’s just how my brain works, and I believe it would make it more clear to those who are not familiar with the intricacies of the area.

[Atlas · Rating 4 out of 5]

While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East
by Yaakov Katz, Amir Bohbot

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press for the ARC! 🙏📚

Vibe Check: sobering 🕯️, military and political analysis-heavy 🪖, emotionally charged 🌍, one-sided but detailed 🎯, essential context for understanding October 7 🔥.

What I Liked:
• Extremely thorough breakdown of the political + intelligence failures that led to October 7 📊
• Clear, chronological narrative that makes a complex situation easy to follow 🧭
• Provides real insight into how Israeli leaders miscalculated and underestimated Hamas ⚖️
• Helps contextualize why October 7 was such a devastating shock ⚡
• Valuable if you want to understand how Israel itself interprets and processes this tragedy 🕊️

What Didn’t Work for Me:
• Definitely written from an Israeli perspective, so expect bias 🚩
• Some passages read more like justification than analysis 📖
• A few sweeping generalizations about “Arab enemies” felt outdated or misleading 🌐
• Limited discussion of Palestinian civilians or the broader humanitarian impact ❌
• Ending felt more like a rallying cry than an even-handed conclusion 📢

Tropes/Elements:
• Military failure and political complacency 🛑
• History + real-time conflict analysis 📚
• Insider look at intelligence blind spots 🕵️
• National security wake-up call 🔔

Final Word: While Israel Slept is part indictment, part insider history lesson. It doesn’t give you the full, nuanced picture of October 7 and its aftermath—but as a document of how Israel views its own failures, it’s powerful, unsettling, and worth reading with a critical eye. 🕯️

[Martin Petersen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the Israeli side of the awful events of October 7th. Written by two well respected Israeli journalists, it goes into some depth on how this could have happened. Not why it happened, but how Israel was taken by surprise. As a career intelligence officer, I have a professional interest in intelligence failures and the first chapter of the book reads like a familiar story: over confidence in technology, failure to understand the other fellow's assessment of the situation, a misreading of his capabilities and intentions, dismissal of warning signs as either something we have seen before or "it makes no sense for them to do that," etc. The book was written and published before the strike on Iran and the devastation of Hamas. It does not cover the fighting in Gaza. It is a look back on how things got to October 7th.

It does a nice job of that. But it goes no further. The fighting in Gaza after October 7th is not addressed, nor are the international pressures on Israel. There is very little on internal discussions, if any, in the Netanyahu government on how to respond. A strong military response was a foregone conclusion, but was there any debate over how much and how long, how to respond to growing international reaction, interaction with the US Government, etc? Like good journalists the authors focus on individual stories and they are interesting. While an important part of the overall picture, it is only part of the picture, which is why I gave it three stars.

[LAMONT D · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, I learned a ton about the inner workings of the Israeli government with all of it competing intelligence, military and political arms. The authors point out repeatedly what went wrong that led to the chaos and loss of life on October 7, 2023. They answer or shed light on how Hamas, supposedly Israel's weakest enemy, succeed in the murderous attack that day, killing, pillaging and raping plus taking hostages during the worst single day of life lost since the Holocaust for the Jewish people. There is much blame to go around as the book takes you on a crash course of history that led up to the attack in 2023. There seems to be a negative narrative concerning Prime Minister Netanyahu throughout the book. But many others in the various roles of the government were called out as well since warnings of the buildup of arms and activity in Gaza from Hamas went largely ignored. It appears to me that Israel cannot win this war on terror that surrounds them 24/7 with the current and past methods implored. The authors do in their conclusion set forth some ideas to prevent another October 7th. As an outsider but huge supporter of the nation of Israel I am not convinced that those ideas will quantitively help as well. Certainly, Israel needs the United States in its corner, and I pray that our leaders will support Israel in the future.

[Steven Conger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frustrating book! It seeks to explain the causes of the failure of the IDF on October 7th and how to prevent such an attack in the future. The first thought is, it is easy to be an October 8th armchair quarterback -- if it was a simple as they point out, it NEVER would have happened. But it also fails to take into account the human element. What Hamas did on Oct 7th was beyond heinous, but the challenge Israel has faced since and before, is how do you root out terrorist who imbed themselves among innocent people. We must be careful how we answer, because, that is how many Gazans look toward Israel today when they look back on Oct 7th.

I have been to Israel dozens of times, leading Christian pilgrim groups. This book is helpful to see the Israeli side of the story, but not helpful if we want the whole picture. Despite that, I am thankful to have had the opportunity to read it and offer this review. I received this book from NetGalley.

[Gareth Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tough read as frankly, it left me feeling hopeless that there will ever be a real peace between Israel and Palestinians while the unsavory characters leading both peoples are in power. From Netanyahu to Hamas officials living a life of luxury in Qatar to sadistic terrorists like Sinwar, a vile group of men hold the future of thousands of people in their hands. And each uses them as he wants. It’s sickening.

The book was interesting in helping understand how Hamas pulled off October 7. But beyond that, I didn’t get much else out of it. I took with a grain of salt the authors’ descriptions of how the IDF sought to protect human life. Because it’s impossible when terrorists are embedded with civilians and it makes no sense to pretend otherwise. Their conclusions were more focused on getting back to a “pre October 7” condition with no long term solution like, dare I say, two states.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even recognizing the overt political bias throughout the book, it can't be argued that Israel's political, military and intelligence institutions badly misinterpreted the intentions of Hamas prior to the October 7, 2023 massacre -- the largest number of Jews killed in a day since the Holocaust.

The journalistic style can't hide either that bias or the heartbreaking nature of Israel's multiple opportunities either to have stopped the attack or at least damaged Hamas significantly in advance. Hindsight is always 20/20, but the book concludes with recommendations for avoiding such catastrophic failure in the future.

A hard book to read, but important not just for Israelis but the rest of us who are all in the sight lines of extremists.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

You need to read While Israel Slept. It's a really intense, eye-opening book by Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot about how the massive attack on October 7th actually happened. They interviewed everyone and show exactly how Israel's military and government missed all the signs.


It's a tough read because the details are so upsetting, but it’s totally necessary if you want to understand the lead-up to that day and why everything went so wrong. It feels less like a history book and more like a detailed, gripping investigation. Highly recommend if you can handle a serious, sobering look at that failure.