The commander of Israel’s navy surveillance company, Unit 8200, has introduced his resignation, publicly accepting duty for failings that led to the lethal 7 October assaults.
Yossi Sariel mentioned on Tuesday that he had knowledgeable his superiors of his intention to step down after the completion of an preliminary investigation into Unit 8200’s position in failures that contributed to the Hamas-led assault final 12 months.
In an emotional four-page letter to workers, Sariel mentioned: “I didn’t fulfil the duty I anticipated of myself, as anticipated of me by my subordinates and commanders and as anticipated of me by the residents of the nation that I like a lot.”
He added: “The duty for 8200’s half within the intelligence and operational failure falls squarely on me.”
Sariel is the most recent Israeli senior defence and safety official to announce their resignation over failures surrounding the assaults final 12 months on southern Israel, through which Palestinian militants killed almost 1,200 folks and kidnapped about 240.
After the assault, Unit 8200 – and Sariel’s management of the as soon as vaunted navy unit – got here below intense scrutiny over its position in what’s extensively thought-about to have been one of many Israeli intelligence neighborhood’s greatest failures.
Sariel’s id because the commander of Unit 8200 – which is similar to the US Nationwide Safety Company or GCHQ within the UK – was beforehand a carefully guarded secret in Israel. Nevertheless, in April the Guardian revealed how the spy chief had left his id uncovered on-line for a number of years.
The safety lapse was linked to a e book Sariel revealed in 2021 utilizing a pen title. The e book, which articulated a radical imaginative and prescient for the way synthetic intelligence may rework intelligence and navy operations, left a digital path to a personal Google account created in Sariel’s title.
The blunder prompted a wave of criticism and mock of Sariel in Israeli media and positioned additional strain on the cyber-intelligence chief, who has additionally confronted accusations that he presided of a tradition of “technological hubris” at Unit 8200 on the expense of extra old style intelligence strategies.
Since 7 October, the massive unit, which sits inside the intelligence department of the Israel Protection Forces (IDF), has performed a vital position in Israel’s 11-month offensive in Gaza, which based on well being authorities within the territory has killed a minimum of 41,000 folks.
Beneath Sariel’s management, Unit 8200 seems to have embraced the imaginative and prescient articulated in his e book, through which AI-based techniques are used to fulfil more and more advanced duties on the battlefield.
In a single part of the e book, Sariel heralded ideas reminiscent of AI-powered “targets machines”, descriptions of which carefully resemble goal suggestion techniques that the IDF has relied upon in its bombardment of Gaza.
In his resignation letter, Sariel mentioned the preliminary investigation of Unit 8200’s position within the failures behind the occasions of seven October had discovered that its intelligence officers had compiled and circulated detailed experiences on Hamas’s plans and preparations earlier than the shock assault.
Regardless of this info, he mentioned, the experiences “didn’t achieve overturning” fundamental Israeli intelligence and navy assumptions about Hamas’s intentions. He mentioned Unit 8200 didn’t present vital intelligence concerning the date of the shock assault.
Though Sariel accepted private duty for his unit’s failings, he pointed to wider failures throughout the Israeli safety and political institution.
“Within the years earlier than and months earlier than, in addition to on October 7 itself, all of us failed as a political and operational system in being unable to attach the dots to see the complete image and put together to face the risk,” he wrote.
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