They were Israel’s ‘eyes on the border’ – but their Hamas warnings went unheard
14th January 2024
For years, units of young female conscripts had one job here. It was to sit in surveillance bases for hours, looking for signs of anything suspicious.
In the months leading up to the 7 October attacks by Hamas, they did begin to see things: practice raids, mock hostage-taking, and farmers behaving strangely on the other side of the fence.
Noa, not her real name, says they would pass information about what they were seeing to intelligence and higher-ranking officers….
It was clear to some of these women that Hamas was planning something big – that there was, in Noa’s words, a “balloon that was going to burst”.
The BBC has now spoken to these young women…
To some of them it became a dark joke: who would be on duty when the inevitable attack came? …
“We would see them practising every day what the raid would look like,” Noa, who is still serving in the military, tells the BBC. “They even had a model tank that they were practising how to take over.
“They also had a model of weapons on the fence and they would also show how they would blow it up, and co-ordinate how to take over the forces and kill and kidnap.” …
At a different base along the border, Gal…
She watched, via surveillance balloon, as a replica model of an automated Israeli weapon on the border was built “in the heart of Gaza”, she says.
Several women also describe bombs being planted and detonated near the fence – known as Israel’s Iron Wall – seemingly to test its strength. …
The drills conducted by Hamas and other armed groups had also been posted publicly on social media, as seen in this BBC investigation.