Israeli intelligence was warned about Hamas attack – FT

A detailed report about a possible imminent attack ended up being dismissed as an “imaginary scenario”

Israeli intelligence received a detailed report on an impending assault by Hamas shortly before the Palestinian militant group’s actual attack on October 7, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing persons familiar with the matter.

The warning, compiled by border sentries, – “many of them female soldiers,” the FT was told– arrived through secure communication lines to the highest-ranking intelligence officer in the southern command a few weeks before the attack, sources said, without identifying the senior security official.

The report contained “specific warnings” on the looming assault, namely Hamas’ plans to breach the border at multiple points, enter Israeli territory and seize local settlements, a person with direct knowledge of its contents told FT.

The assessment was based on intelligence that included videos of Hamas militants in training. The high-ranking intelligence officer who received the report, however, dismissed the assessment as an “imaginary scenario” and no action was taken.

Reached by FT for comment, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) neither confirmed nor denied the existence of the intelligence report and its fate, stating its “commanders and soldiers were exclusively focused strictly” on the battle against Hamas rather than finding those to blame for Israeli failures in the October 7 attack.

“Following the war, a thorough investigation will be conducted to clarify all details,” the IDF told FT.

The new allegations follow a recent report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which cited an unnamed Israeli female soldier, who blamed institutionalized sexism in the ranks of the IDF for the lack of attention to reports from its border sentries.

According to the report, female surveillance troops relayed their concerns about unusual Hamas activities months before the incursion. They’d reportedly observed militants engaged in briefings near the border fence, training to disable surveillance cameras and to target Israeli tanks, as well as an increase in drone activity.

“It’s a unit made up entirely of young girls and young female commanders,” the source told Haaretz of the soldiers who’d compiled the warning for their superiors. “There is no doubt that if there were men sitting at those screens, things would look different.”

https://www.rt.com/news/587919-israeli-intelligence-hamas-attack/

IDF raided Al-Shifa hospital despite uncovering Hamas HQ miles away – media

Israel has long insisted that the Palestinian militant group operates out of hospitals and other protected infrastructure

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) raided Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital complex, insisting Hamas was using the healthcare facility as its “terror headquarters,” despite having uncovered the militant group’s actual headquarters just days earlier, Consortium News reported on Thursday.

The outlet’s report cited a Jerusalem Post story published ahead of the controversial raid detailing how the IDF had discovered Hamas’ underground high command center – five miles (8.5km) away from the hospital. The IDF nevertheless went ahead with the assault on Al-Shifa, continuing to insist that the complex hid Hamas’ central base of operations without mentioning the discovery it had made days before.

The actual Hamas “pit” headquarters was reportedly accessible via an unusually deep (30 meters, or 98 feet) elevator shaft opening into an underground cavern outfitted with oxygen, air conditioning, and advanced communications technology, which bore signs of recent use by the group’s Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar and military chief Mohammed Deif, the IDF told the Post.

While the IDF pointed to an underground dormitory-style room and a handful of guns and grenades supposedly found during the raid on Al-Shifa as proof of a Hamas “bunker” inside the complex, reporters given tours of the findings pointed out that the weapons could have been brought in by anyone. The BBC also found the IDF’s supposedly unedited clip of the discovery had at least one edit.

The IDF subsequently unpublished the video of a lengthy presentation spokesman Daniel Hagari had delivered on October 27 that had laid out a 3D rendering of Hamas’ alleged command-and-control center inside the Al-Shifa complex from its website. The supposed sprawling operations center was said to encompass five separate buildings and tunnels connecting them all with various other assets.

Failure to uncover such a structure has led news outlets like the Associated Press and The Guardian to question the claims that served as the basis for the raid on the hospital, a protected site under international humanitarian law. Israel has been accused of misrepresenting water reservoirs and elevator shafts inside Al-Shifa and other hospitals as “Hamas tunnels” in what critics say is an effort to justify what would otherwise be illegal airstrikes. A video purporting to show a Palestinian nurse complaining Hamas was “taking over” Al-Shifa was also exposed as fake, with the “nurse” identified as an Israeli actress.

While Washington initially backed the IDF’s claims that Hamas was using Al-Shifa as a command center, US officials began referring to the hospital as a “command node” instead even before the raid, suggesting an awareness that the militant group’s nerve center was elsewhere. Hamas and the doctors employed at Al-Shifa have always denied the hospital was used for military purposes.

https://www.rt.com/news/587947-idf-alshifa-hospital-hamas-discovery/

'Reluctant Threesome': Ghislaine Maxwell Slapped With New Lawsuit As 'NY Survivors Act' Deadline Nears

Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has been sued by a former Epstein accuser who says she was sexually abused for years by the disgraced financier.

he woman, Elizabeth Stein, who has previously identified herself as a victim of Ghislaine Maxwell during the latter's 2021 trial, filed the lawsuit under New York's Adult Survivors Act in the Supreme Court of New York against Maxwell and two executors of Jeffrey Epstein's estate.

The Act, signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in May 2022, allows alleged survivors of sexual offenses to file lawsuits against their abusers in New York, even if the statute of limitations on their claims has expired, provided that the incident happened when the victims were over the age of 18. It provides a one-year window to do so, which ended on Thursday.

The complaint alleges a "Decades-long organized scheme to procure young females for their own sexual pleasure and that of their friends and acquaintances, many of them high government officials and corporate titans," between 1994 and 1997, when she was in her early 20s.

"The pair first groomed Plaintiff with flattery, gifts, feigned interest in her future, and false promises of advancing her career and personal life. They shamed her when she refused their favors and overtures and stalked her with the malicious and malevolent purpose of turning her into sexual meat for consumption by themselves and others," reads the filing.

Stein was subsequently hospitalized "numerous times for nervous breakdowns" and underwent "multiple medical procedures to rid herself of the horrific psychological damage Epstein and Maxwell foisted upon her in her formative years."

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/reluctant-threesome-ghislaine-maxwell-slapped-new-lawsuit-ny-survivors-act-deadline-nears

U.S. & Germany Push Zelensky To Negotiate, Ceding Territory to Russia.

The U.S. and German governments now believe the Ukrainian military is incapable of retaking territory lost to Russia in the course of the latter’s invasion. According to the German news outlet BILD, the two governments hope Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will come to realize the need for negotiations with Russia. A German government source told the outlet, “Zelensky should come to the realization that things cannot go on like this.” The failure of Ukraine’s counter-offensive has left U.S. and German officials concluding additional weapons shipments to the country should only be in quantities needed to hold the war front and prevent further Russian territorial gains. “He should address his nation of his own free will and explain that negotiations need to be carried out,” the government source said.

https://thenationalpulse.com/2023/11/24/u-s-germany-push-zelensky-to-negotiate-ceding-territory-to-russia/