Senior Shin Bet Official: On October 7th, I Was Told It's a Drill

Mira Shoshani, former head of a counterterrorism division at the Shin Bet, revealed in an interview on Channel 12's "Exposure" program that when the shooting began on October 7th, she received a call from the regional operations chief telling her it was a drill. Shoshani, who was at her home in Kfar Aza while her daughter Ofir was murdered in the kibbutz, described how even she struggled to grasp the scale of the attack.

When the sirens began, her daughter reached out asking about the gunfire. Shoshani offered to come get her, but Ofir was afraid to leave. At the same time, Shoshani tried to find out what was happening through her contacts in the organization.

"I was in shock. I wrote in the work WhatsApp group and no one answered me. The head of the regional operations staff called me and said: 'It's a drill.' He said he was in the command center, and I asked why. He said there were all kinds of warning signs overnight. I told him this isn't a drill, that they're shooting at the entire country. He was in shock and hung up the phone."

"I Thought I Understood Hamas"

Shoshani, whose role involved dealing with senior Hamas officials abroad, addressed her familiarity with the organization before the attack. "I thought I understood Hamas. I was part of the conception. The first thought that went through my head was 'what happened to Sinwar?'"

Even after she understood there were terrorists in the kibbutz, she thought it was a cell infiltration and that security forces would manage to end the incident. According to her, she called trying to bring forces, and at 9:15 she managed to direct a Dovdevan unit that arrived at the kibbutz.

"In my head, the Duvdevan unit arrived and the incident would be over soon. It was clear to me that this would end and I'd drive to work," she said.

But at 10:15, Ofir said on the phone: "I've been shot." Her father Shai went out in an attempt to rescue her and was wounded by terrorist fire. Shoshani continued talking with her daughter and trying to bring forces to her.

"She said it hurt and asked where the forces were. She didn't cry or scream, she spoke calmly, in an almost freezing quiet," she recounted. Later, contact was lost. On Monday afternoon, after a force reached Ofir's room, Shoshani received the news of her death.

"When You Think There'll Be a Raid, You Jump the Army, Not a Takila Team"

Shoshani also addressed the decision to send a tequila team following the warning signs detected before the attack. According to her, this choice illustrated to her that the scope of the threat was not understood.

"I understand that given the understanding of the warning signs, they decided to send a takila team so that even if they're wrong, there would be a forward team that would provide a response. When you think there'll be a raid, you jump the army, not a takila team. Therefore, this was proof, first of all to me, that they didn't understand."

About the failure, she said: "Not only did the Shin Bet fail, everything failed. The policy failed, the army failed, it's just such a huge professional failure."

When asked what her expectation was, she replied: "To interrogate yourself deeply about where we went wrong. To really try to understand how this happened to us, because if we don't understand how it happened, we won't be able to fix it."