Watch ‘Failure At The Fence,’ a documentary from ‘Frontline,’ The Washington Post | EUROtoday

Lender, who mentioned his family members helped to determine the kibbutz lower than two miles from Gaza in 1951, listened to the army’s daring claims concerning the power and surveillance know-how of what they referred to as the Iron Wall. “We believed that this can protect us,” he mentioned.

Yet on the morning of Oct. 7, Kfar Aza was devastated by Hamas gunmen who had blown by the barrier with ease. Lender mentioned that as he and his spouse cowered of their strengthened secure room, fighters ransacked their dwelling and put in snipers on their roof. The brutality was repeated at residential areas and army outposts throughout the area, leaving at the least 1,100 useless.

The interview with Lender was carried out for the documentary “Failure at the Fence,” embedded on the prime of this web page. Reporters traveled to Israel to interview survivors, troops, medics and safety consultants to determine the causes and penalties of the barrier’s collapse.

The movie expands on a visible investigation printed by The Post final month, which reconstructed the assault. Reporters analyzed tons of of movies, photographs, and audio recordings from earlier than, throughout and after the assault by Hamas. The Post additionally examined maps and planning paperwork recovered from slain Hamas fighters.

The documentary examines the barrier’s catastrophic failure. It premieres Tuesday on PBS and streaming platforms and on-line at washingtonpost.com.

The investigation with “Frontline” discovered that the so-called Iron Wall was the truth is a fragile barrier that gave Israel a false sense of safety. A dependence on the construction and its subtle surveillance instruments in the end blinded Israel to its personal vulnerabilities — and to a meticulous plan of assault that was taking form on the opposite aspect.

In an interview, Dany Tirza, a retired IDF colonel and former head of its separation fence administration, mentioned it had been an error for leaders to make sweeping assurances concerning the barrier’s impermeability.

“Of course it was a mistake,” mentioned Tirza. “We really thought that we are building a very good infrastructure that will help to save the lives of the Israelis. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.”

In retaliation for the Hamas assault, Israel unleashed a struggle in Gaza that has to this point killed greater than 19,000 Palestinian civilians, in response to the Gaza Health Ministry. Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas, which controls the densely populated enclave.

A spokesman for the IDF, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, mentioned that after the struggle, the army owed the residents of southern Israel “accountability for the failure” that made the Oct. 7 assault doable.

“There will be a time when the IDF will be doing that soul-searching that is required,” Lerner mentioned in an interview for the movie.

Press play on the video on the prime of this web page to look at the documentary.