Item 1: The WSJ published a much discussed article describing the Hamas attacks as coordinated with and authorized by Iran in a series of meetings in Beirut. The article appears to have been sourced entirely to Hamas representatives/officials. I would suggest great caution about these claims. Just because Hamas officials tell the Journal something doesn’t mean it’s true. What’s more, lots of people who know the region and know Iran suggest a lot of caution. To be clear, the point isn’t that this couldn’t be true, or partly true. But it would be an error to treat it as fact based on this one report.

One big mystery about today’s events in Israel, which I alluded to in the previous post, is how exactly Israel was caught quite this unprepared. An attack of this scale required very large numbers of people to be read into the preparations if not the operational planning for the attack. Israel has long had a dense network of informants and collaborators in the territories. That’s layered over with signals intelligence and various forms of surveillance. And yet Israel appears to have been caught totally unawares and unprepared. It’s not just that they didn’t know something like this was happening today. They don’t seem to have known that an operation of this scale and audacity was even being considered.

That’s an intelligence failure that’s hard to overstate.

For more on the last day’s events in Israel, I recommend the sources and the list I noted in the post immediately before this one.

The following are just some best guesses on my part and what I would call guidance in where to find the best information and how to think about what is unfolding.

The first point is that Israel has been in a state of political paralysis and stalemate for the better part of a year. Both leaders of the opposition have now offered to join an emergency national unity government for the duration of this conflict. I’ve seen people saying maybe this is how Netanyahu finally puts his political problems behind him because of national unity in the face of war. Alternatively, that the opposition leaders are being craven in offering to join.

If you’re looking for information on the coordinated Hamas attacks in southern Israel I recommend this Twitter list of (mostly) English language news sources from Israel, if you’re on Twitter. The Times of Israel, the English language version of Haaretz and Ynet are also good. This is one of those moments when I need to remind people that often when we don’t cover something that doesn’t mean we don’t think it’s important. Often it’s because we have nothing unique to add. If you’re just waking to this, what happened overnight (US time) in southern Israel is dramatically different from the occasional rounds of rocket fire from Gaza we’ve seen over the last couple decades. The initial reports are still chaotic and incomplete. It’s unclear how much has or will happen in other areas. But the gist is that in addition to rocket fire Hamas was able to launch a big and highly successful operation in which it infiltrated large numbers of paramilitaries into many Israeli towns in the South of the country, mostly but not only in the areas bordering Gaza.

These fighters went into these Israeli towns lighting homes on fire, killing at least dozens of civilians, wounding hundreds and taking a still unclear number of civilians and soldiers hostage. Some appear to have been taken back into Gaza. Some are now part of active hostage situations within those Israeli towns as the IDF streams into these towns in force. Hamas is claiming to have captured “high level” IDF officers. But as yet there have been no details or solid confirmation of that.

As I write the latest numbers are more than 100 killed in Israel and more than 800 wounded. Reports suggest about twice each of those numbers in the Israeli retaliation which followed the attack according to Palestinian authorities, though both sets of numbers should be seen as tentative and almost certain to rise.

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