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Stevenson’s army, December 30

NYT has a lengthy report on military problems in the early hours of the 10/7 attacks. Among its findings:

– 2 of the 6 battalions based opposite Gaza were moved to the West Bank on 10/5.

– There was no plan to deal with the kind and level of the Hamas attacks.

– The base which should have been the command post for the response was overrun by Hamas.

– IDF personnel sometimes had to use WhatsApp to give bombing targets.

– Because of the holiday, many units were at only 50% manning.

– Hamas caused major delays on the roads leading toward Gaza with sniper and vehicle operations.

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).