I think calling their lack of preparation for something that hasn't happened in 50 years suspicious is a stretch, regardless of whether or not there was an anniversary.
It's not that it's not happened in 50 years, it's that it's the anniversary of an event and it's a big anniversary. Instead of a slightly raised security presence, it was markedly reduced. The US has heightened security every year on key holidays, and the US does't have such an immediate threat right next door. Meanwhile Israel is generally more militaristic as a nation with mandatory service. The lack of defensive forces present on the day is just ludicrous.
I personally haven't seen any actual evidence that it was intentionally reduced for the anniversary specifically. That would be more suspicious if you can provide proof.
There have been plenty of sources that said forces had been moved away from Gaza to the West Bank. In fairness though there were some diversionary attacks by Hamas in the West Bank, also, but many of the gates that were breached seem to have been completely unguarded. Perhaps telling, there has been very little mention of casualties to Israeli defense forces, or even details about where they engaged with the insurgents during the initial attack.
Hamas was also left to run amok for 5 hours and at the end of that were able to cross back over the border with hostages.
How on earth is one of the worlds most powerful militaries caught with it's pants down that badly and how were they not able to organize some kind of a response in 5 hours?
At the very least you'd have expected them to ambush them on the way out and rescue the hostages. They have fleets of drones for pete's sake, they could have taken out every single one of those terrorists with drones to spare.
It makes no sense whatsoever, unless of course they let it happen as a casus belli to once and for all deal with the Palestinian problem.
I'm not going to pretend like I know the ins and outs of Israeli military defense, but none of this sounds like damning evidence. I'm not as eager to jump straight to the "Bush did 9/11" equivalent.
I think calling their lack of preparation for something that hasn't happened in 50 years suspicious is a stretch, regardless of whether or not there was an anniversary.
It's not that it's not happened in 50 years, it's that it's the anniversary of an event and it's a big anniversary. Instead of a slightly raised security presence, it was markedly reduced. The US has heightened security every year on key holidays, and the US does't have such an immediate threat right next door. Meanwhile Israel is generally more militaristic as a nation with mandatory service. The lack of defensive forces present on the day is just ludicrous.
I personally haven't seen any actual evidence that it was intentionally reduced for the anniversary specifically. That would be more suspicious if you can provide proof.
There have been plenty of sources that said forces had been moved away from Gaza to the West Bank. In fairness though there were some diversionary attacks by Hamas in the West Bank, also, but many of the gates that were breached seem to have been completely unguarded. Perhaps telling, there has been very little mention of casualties to Israeli defense forces, or even details about where they engaged with the insurgents during the initial attack.
Hamas was also left to run amok for 5 hours and at the end of that were able to cross back over the border with hostages.
How on earth is one of the worlds most powerful militaries caught with it's pants down that badly and how were they not able to organize some kind of a response in 5 hours?
At the very least you'd have expected them to ambush them on the way out and rescue the hostages. They have fleets of drones for pete's sake, they could have taken out every single one of those terrorists with drones to spare.
It makes no sense whatsoever, unless of course they let it happen as a casus belli to once and for all deal with the Palestinian problem.
I'm not going to pretend like I know the ins and outs of Israeli military defense, but none of this sounds like damning evidence. I'm not as eager to jump straight to the "Bush did 9/11" equivalent.
I don't think there is any damning evidence available, one way or the other.