Israel has a cutting-edge security technology industry and was (and still should be) considered to be the leading nation for national security.

The controversial electronic intelligence platform Pegasus was developed in Israel, and the border between Israel and Gaza was considered – before the October 7 attack – to be a leading example of using sensors and machine learning to reduce the need for human guards while not reducing the strength of the security.

But when Hamas fighters descended on the Supernova music festival on October 7, they had used drones to disable Israeli communication towers and remote-controlled machine guns. They also used unexpected tactics to breach the border. These included flooding the Iron Dome air defences with rockets, arriving on hang-gliders and demolishing the border with bulldozers (a likely echo of Israel’s use of bulldozers in occupied territories).

Despite the sophistication of Israel’s border control technology, it remains vulnerable to an enemy who understands how it works and how to compromise it. The lesson for all security agencies after the Hamas attack is to assess what secondary protection there is in their security systems and processes.

The Israelis also seem to have committed a fundamental intelligence error, which is to view the enemy through a set perspective. In assuming that Hamas was incapable and disinterested in attacking using targeted and coordinated force from the land, sea and sky (via missiles and hang-glider fighters) they discounted these tactics.