I am certain that not even the most imaginative writer of the most complex Hollywood scenarios could have predicted or fathomed the plot the world woke up to on the morning of Saturday, October 7, 2023. At 6:25 a.m., thousands of rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip towards Israeli sites and towns inside the Green Line all at once and without warning. It became clear less than half an hour after the operation began that this massive barrage of rockets and shells was merely cover for a large-scale incursion by Palestinian resistance fighters across the Green Line, leading to the dramatic, unprecedented fall of numerous Israeli sites and settlements into the hands of the fighters in an operation dubbed (Al-Aqsa Flood). In response, Israel declared a state of war for the first time since declaring war on the morning of Saturday, October 6, 1973—exactly half a century ago.

The scenes that spread across media and social media platforms were shocking and surprising on all levels. What transpired was not an infiltration, because it did not happen secretly, but a real incursion in broad daylight. Seeing Palestinian fighters roaming the streets of settlements established 75 years ago, which until Friday were considered heavily fortified sites protected from the air by the Iron Dome, was an unfamiliar sight. This time, the danger surprised these settlements from the ground, not the air, not to mention the naval attack whose details remain unclear at the time of writing.

The events are still in their early stages, and observing the tactics and movements of the Palestinian resistance suggests they are not dealing with a limited operation but a major, strategically planned one. At this early stage, the event can be analyzed through several points:

The first thing that caught attention on all levels on this day was the magnitude of the surprise, which Israel was unable to conceal. The absence of information and assessments from the occupation government and its security agencies indicated an unprecedented intelligence failure. This was evident in the complete lack of any Israeli response to the Palestinian incursion for a full 4 hours, separating the start of the operation and the first Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip in response to the Palestinian attack. Even in the 1973 war, which was a surprise to Israel at the time, recently declassified Israeli documents reveal that a war scenario was on Prime Minister Golda Meir's table that year, but the military and security establishment's assessments at the time ruled out the likelihood of an actual attack. This time, however, information appears to have been completely absent from the Israeli security level, paralyzing Israel and preventing any reaction for several hours until it partially comprehended what was happening on the ground. Even when Netanyahu began to recover from the shock to announce security and governmental meetings to study the situation, he declared that the mini-security cabinet would convene at 1:00 p.m., a full seven hours after the operation began. This extreme and unusual slowness indicates a complete lack of readiness to deal with this scenario. Furthermore, the extensive destruction caused by the initial rocket and shell salvos raised questions about the Iron Dome system's readiness to handle an operation of this scale.

The timing of the operation itself was humiliating for Israel. It came on the last day of the Sukkot holiday season, in the midst of a high-level alert by the Israeli army and police forces that had lasted 22 days to secure the Hebrew New Year, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot holidays. It coincided with heightened tensions in the West Bank and Jerusalem in anticipation of any operations. The alert and lockdown were supposed to continue until Sunday, October 8. The Israeli focus during this alert was on the West Bank and Jerusalem, while being lax on the southern front with Gaza, as a reaction to the escalation of armed resistance in the West Bank.

These conditions lend special significance to the incursion. One cannot ignore what has been happening in Jerusalem and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque for over a year and a half since May 2022. The Israeli targeting of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque (which led to the 2021 war) reached unprecedented levels of arrogance over the past year and this year, displayed by the extremist Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and his faction, to the point of proposing the division of parts of Al-Aqsa Mosque for extremist religious groups. This coincided with a fierce assault by settlers on West Bank citizens under the auspices of the extremist Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

This assault began to show its effects in the northern West Bank areas, where the occupation army rampages daily, entering and leaving Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus, and their camps, leaving Palestinian victims, without any reaction from the Palestinian Authority, which is keen to prevent any activity against Israeli occupation soldiers, nor any reaction from the Gaza Strip level. This gave the Israeli army a relative sense of comfort. It appears that the extensive deception operation carried out by the resistance over the past weeks succeeded in reinforcing the Israeli army's state of relaxation, especially on the southern front, where Palestinian factions refrained from engaging in a wide-scale confrontation with Israel and instead focused on supporting the popular border fence protests.

The resistance's shift from limited military action against the Israeli security fence to a full-scale incursion and actual control over villages and towns surrounding the Strip on this wide scale completely flips the deterrence equation in the region. The dramatic collapse of the Israeli deterrence system indicates a deep flaw in its structure. Although it is a system with a global reputation, it—at least as it currently appears—was not as strong as Israel had propagated. This opens the door wide to questions about the entire structure of the Israeli military and security project. Even a casual observer cannot help but wonder if Israel is truly the power portrayed by global media.

Merely posing this question is, in itself, an existential danger for Israel. The Israeli deterrence system is fundamentally based on the media image that Israel has worked for seventy-five years to build and maintain. This is the key upon which the idea of normalization agreements with Israel was based, under the assumption that Israel is a fait accompli and a major power that some political regimes try to ally with for self-protection. If this mythical image of Israel is so simply stripped away, then normalization agreements with it, whether current or future, lose their justification.

Furthermore, launching a strategic military operation of this size and form is bound to have significant expected effects in the near and medium term. It is expected that the Palestinian resistance's objectives from this operation are no less than obliging Israel to stop the attacks on the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, considering what happened there as the direct trigger for the events just before the incursion began.

Logically, the capture of a large number of live Israeli prisoners by the resistance will undoubtedly be used to secure the release of Palestinian prisoners in potential deals that are completely different from previous ones. This explains the resistance's keenness to continuously publish photos of the prisoners alive at this stage, to prevent Israel from ignoring them as it has done with prisoners held by the resistance for years. Additionally, this operation is considered a golden opportunity to force Israel to lift the siege on Gaza, for fear of Israel being compelled to enter an open war it cannot bear.

Israel does not have many options in facing this operation. The opportunities for it to deal with the results of this surprise diminish with the passage of more time. The consensus is that the idea of Israeli deterrence, which shattered on Saturday morning, cannot be fully restored after this humiliating defeat. Israel has never before dealt with this level of danger, which it cannot label as external because it is in the heart of the '48 territories, not outside the borders. Moreover, the possibility of the confrontation expanding to encompass the Palestinian territories and perhaps some border fronts remains likely, as psychological pressure in Jerusalem—Israel's weakest point—and the West Bank reaches its peak, in addition to the harbingers of military clashes with the occupation in the West Bank. This could lead to open street warfare in West Bank areas. If this happens and expands, it will paralyze Israel's ability to deal with the event due to the widening scope of the confrontation.

The conclusion we reach under these circumstances is that the entire Israeli project is now at stake. I do not think Israel can easily find a way out. Regardless of the final outcome of this operation, the first victims will undoubtedly be three names: Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, and Smotrich.