When Israeli navy leaders mentioned in 2021 that a $1 billion revamp of the long-standing barrier alongside the Gaza Strip would stop incursions from Hamas, individuals residing within the close by Kfar Aza kibbutz trusted them.
“They build a big wall, they said to us,” resident Israel Lender, 65, mentioned in an interview for a collaboration between The Washington Post and filmmakers from “Frontline.”
Lender, who mentioned his kinfolk helped to ascertain the kibbutz lower than two miles from Gaza in 1951, listened to the navy’s daring claims in regards to the energy and surveillance know-how of what they referred to as the Iron Wall. “We believed that this can protect us,” he mentioned.
Yet on the morning of Oct. 7, Kfar Aza was devastated by Hamas gunmen who had blown by means of the barrier with ease. Lender mentioned that as he and his spouse cowered of their bolstered secure room, fighters ransacked their house and put in snipers on their roof. The brutality was repeated at residential areas and navy outposts throughout the area, leaving no less than 1,100 lifeless.
The interview with Lender was carried out for the documentary “Failure at the Fence,” embedded on the prime of this web page. Reporters traveled to Israel to interview survivors, troops, medics and safety specialists to ascertain the causes and penalties of the barrier’s collapse.
The movie expands on a visible investigation printed by The Post final month, which reconstructed the assault. Reporters analyzed a whole bunch of movies, images, and audio recordings from earlier than, throughout and after the assault by Hamas. The Post additionally examined maps and planning paperwork recovered from slain Hamas fighters.
The documentary examines the barrier’s catastrophic failure. It premieres Tuesday on PBS and streaming platforms and on-line at washingtonpost.com.
The investigation with “Frontline” discovered that the so-called Iron Wall was the truth is a fragile barrier that gave Israel a false sense of safety. A dependence on the construction and its refined surveillance instruments finally blinded Israel to its personal vulnerabilities — and to a meticulous plan of assault that was taking form on the opposite facet.
In an interview, Dany Tirza, a retired IDF colonel and former head of its separation fence administration, mentioned it had been an error for leaders to make sweeping assurances in regards to the barrier’s impermeability.
“Of course it was a mistake,” mentioned Tirza. “We really thought that we are building a very good infrastructure that will help to save the lives of the Israelis. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.”
In retaliation for the Hamas assault, Israel unleashed a warfare in Gaza that has to this point killed greater than 19,000 Palestinian civilians, based on the Gaza Health Ministry. Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas, which controls the densely populated enclave.
A spokesman for the IDF, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, mentioned that after the warfare, the navy owed the residents of southern Israel “accountability for the failure” that made the Oct. 7 assault potential.
“There will be a time when the IDF will be doing that soul-searching that is required,” Lerner mentioned in an interview for the movie.
Press play on the video on the prime of this web page to look at the documentary.
