Brig. Gen. Yossi Sariel, head of the Israeli army’s famed Unit 8200, announced his resignation due to his ‘personal responsibility’ in the intelligence failure that led to the October 7 attacks. ‘Responsibility for Unit 8200’s part in the intelligence and operational failure rests entirely on me,’ he wrote.
In the letter he sent to the members of the unit, he wrote that “on October 7 at 6:29 A.M., I did not perform the task as I expected of myself, as expected of me by my subordinates and commanders, and as expected of me by the citizens of the country that I love so much.”
“Today, due to the state of the war, to the processes of rebuilding the unit’s resilience and after completion of the initial investigation processes, I request to exercise my personal responsibility as the commander of the unit on October 7 to transfer the baton of command to the next commander,” he wrote.
“Throughout my years of service,” Sariel continued, “I have learned that the risks and opportunities, the successes, mistakes and failures, lie at the nexus between information and knowledge, between intelligence and operation, between what we know and what we don’t know. In the years before and months before, as well as on October 7 itself, we all failed as a political and operational system in being unable to connect the dots to see the full picture and prepare to face the threat.”
“Personally, I failed in that I did not sufficiently understand the need, and therefore I also did not adequately reflect the need, that in the unique reality of the Gaza border, there must be a different level of risk management, derived from the minimal margin of error that exists in this sector,” he wrote.
Later in the letter, the outgoing unit commander wrote that “responsibility for Unit 8200′s part in the intelligence and operational failure rests entirely on me.”
“I ask for a deep apology. I’m sorry that I didn’t fulfill the mission as you expected of me, and as I demanded of myself. I know, and it hurts, that what was done cannot be undone. I bow my head,” he said.
Sariel had previously served as a senior officer in Unit 8200, and was later promoted to the head of the unit’s cyber branch. He then went on to serve as the head intelligence officer for the IDF’s central command, and was promoted to the head of operations for the IDF’s military intelligence service. In 2021, he was appointed commander of Unit 8200.
Before he took up that post, in 2020, Sariel spent a year studying at the National Defense University in Washington D.C., as part of the Israeli defense establishment’s program of sending officers abroad for a year of academic study before they begin command posts.
In April, the Guardian revealed that Sariel had exposed his identity in a series of online security lapses. His identity as Unit 8200’s commander was previously confidential.
The report stated that his identity was revealed through a Google account linked to the sales page of a book on Amazon, which was published under the alias Brigadier General YS.
The book’s Amazon page included his personal email and the Guardian was able to find Sariel’s personal Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram accounts, which clearly linked him to Unit 8200.
Following that article, Haaretz’s Yossi Melman published an article which called Sariel’s lapse “an embarrassment” that put himself and the entire Israeli intelligence community at risk.
HAARTETZ
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