In “The October 7 War: Israel’s Battle for Security in Gaza,” Seth Frantzman doesn’t use hyperbole when he writes: “A country that went to sleep on Oct. 6 concerned with domestic controversies woke up the next day to an unprecedented war. It was a shock that shook the country to its core and left major questions about the future.”
Frantzman writes that as rockets flew overhead when he drove down to the border, his colleague Dr. Eric Mandel notified him that he saw corpses littering the streets. Some were Israeli civilians, and some were terrorists. The book is about the four months when he covered the war.
He notes that while more information will come out after official investigations are completed, there was an overconfidence by the heads of the Israeli military as well as politicians, who believed that by making sure money flowed to Hamas, the terrorist group would care about self-interest and not launch any major attack. He conveys the shock that many in the world sided with Hamas. “By attacking Israel,” he writes, “Hamas did not receive more condemnation and isolation globally; instead, it achieved more recognition and a spotlight.”
Frantzman takes you through the founding of Hamas, first through an election and then by murdering its opponents in the Fatah party.
“At each point in history when Israel was about to achieve peace, Hamas would seek to sabotage the efforts via massive deadly attacks,” he writes of periods of past decades. “The same would occur in October 2023 when Hamas sought to derail normalization with Saudi Arabia and peace in the region.”
While Israel assassinated founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin in 2004, three years earlier it released Yahya Sinwar in the trade for kidnapped solider Gilad Shalit. Sinwar is the leader of Hamas, the Oct. 7 attack’s mastermind, and is still alive. Frantzman writes that lessons have been learned. “Technology is not a substitute for strategy and tactics.”
Hamas did preparatory drills in plain sight during daylight hours so that Israel would be fooled into thinking the terrorist group was simply doing drills. Israel’s rationale was that the country defeated Hamas in 2002, 2009, 2012, 2014 and 2021, so it could do it again if it had to.” But none of those included large-scale, surprise ground attacks.
He notes that Knesset member Avigdor Liberman resigned as Defense Minister in 2018, sensing that the threat of Hamas was not taken seriously and that a paper he wrote explaining the possibility of a large-scale attack was largely ignored. The payments from Qatar that were believed to be for the purpose of de-incentivizing war were instead used to finance the terror tunnels, which were a key to the war.
The plan, dubbed “walls of Jericho,” outlining almost exactly the October attack, was seen in April of 2002, but not acted upon.
Some facts are mindboggling. Hamas terrorists switched their SIM cards to those used in Israeli phones, but somehow this fact was not properly communicated up the chain of command. The first of the book’s three sections ends with the claim that “if the Israelis were awake and ready and there were enough drones and helicopters, the attackers would have been mown down.” IDF surveillance solider Maya Desiantik recalled that she and her colleague saw Hamas fighters on motorbikes blow up the fence. Hamas destroyed the communications systems on the fence.
It was a shock that Hamas terrorists were able to get through the wall and that soldiers could not respond quickly enough, though Frantzman does include stories of heroic soldiers who saved lives. It is believed 300 Israeli soldiers were killed on Oct. 7.
Among the horrors were those at the Nova festival, where he writes that terrorists debated about who they should murder or rape. Mia Schem was kidnapped and wounded, though ultimately released. Shani Louk, whose picture was shown around the world, depicted the brutality of Hamas. He also writes about the shock of Israeli residents of Sderot waking up that Saturday morning, looking out their windows and seeing Hamas terrorists driving through the streets. At first, people viewing the harrowing videos on social media could not believe they were real. It was also incomprehensible that Palestinian civilians crossed the fence to loot and, in some cases, do much worse.
There are some unbelievable stories like that of Rachel Edry, who served the terrorists snacks, joked with them and survived their home invasion when police killed them. And Noa Argamani, who became the face of Oct. 7, when video showed her terrified as she was taken away as a hostage. On June 8, she was freed in a daring, successful rescue by the IDF. Then there’s the striking statistic that more than 100 of the Israeli soldiers killed were under 21.
In Sderot, soldiers were incensed by what they saw. There was also the strange case of Emily Hand, 9, whose father was told she was killed, only to later find out that she was, in fact, alive. The two were reunited. There are also the observers at the Nahal Oz base like Roni Eshel, 19, who was killed. Frantzman writes she had previously warned that Hamas’ surveillance of the fence meant an attack was likely in the works.
In a celebratory speech, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, living abroad, said their action will be crowned with a “resounding defeat” of Israel. (Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran last week.)
Frantzman notes that Israel decided to postpone the investigation of the attack and not fire anybody who may have been responsible. He argues that this attack shows the importance of constantly challenging assumptions, and describes Iran’s unprecedented attack on April 14 of about 300 missiles and drones as well as the nearly daily attacks by Hezbollah. While Russia and China did not condemn the attacks of Oct. 7, it is unclear how much assistance they would be willing to provide against Israel. Frantzman writes of the pain that more than 120 hostages are still in captivity and that there is much uncertainty ahead. His book does not focus on the deaths of those inside Gaza.
Frantzman’s book powerfully shows how one should never underestimate their enemy and how low-grade technology can sometimes defeat high-tech. At the same time he gives credit to the soldiers who fought valiantly at a moment‘s notice, and marks the lack of world condemnation and spread of antisemitism.
It is the type of book you wish you never had to read, but given the tragic circumstances, it is one you need to.
This book would be a must-read under any circumstance. But with the war being on the cusp of turning into a full-scale regional war, if not a world war, it is important to learn crucial facts that Frantzman shares. It is the type of book you wish you never had to read, but given the tragic circumstances, it is one you need to. It may help some overcome the naivete of thinking this is just one war, and not a chapter in a larger effort to destroy Israel.
