Israeli officials falsely concluded that Hamas may not provoke a full-scale war with Israel, it was reported amid questions over Tel Aviv’s major intelligence failures amid deadly assault. According to Haaretz, an Israeli Left-wing newspaper, an assessment by security services last week found that Hamas was eager “to avoid a full-fledged war with Israel.”

The assessment concluded that Hamas did not want to “jeopardise past achievements that bettered the lives of the Gazan residents”, Haaretz reported, referring to economic incentives offered by Israel to Gaza. This comes as the death toll from the Hamas attack rose above 600 in Israel following the militant group’s multi-pronged attack that involved ground, sea and air incursions into southern Israel.

Some Israeli outlets condemned the attack as Israel’s worst security failure in 50 years. “Netanyahu’s recklessness has brought war upon Israel,” stated the headline of a column by Haaretz journalist Yossi Verter.

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“Even if all of the Gaza Strip is destroyed [and there is no need for this],” he wrote, “and even if the heads of Mohammed Deif, Khaled Meshal, Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and their associates roll in the alleys, this will not make up for the biggest security failure since 1973.”

“It will not sweeten the bitter taste of the debacle, and it won’t ease the shock of the number of those killed and kidnapped,” he added.

Jonathan Panikoff, a former senior US official and analyst at the Atlantic Council think tank told the Telegraph, “This was an intelligence failure; it could not be otherwise. It was a security failure, undermining what was thought to be an aggressive and successful layered approach toward Gaza by Israel.”