We Cannot Afford to Return to October 6
The October Council, an organization formed by bereaved families, survivors, families of hostages and others directly affected by the October 7 massacre, has issued a warning that cannot be ignored. Its new report raises the possibility that Israel does not lack intelligence, but may still lack the institutional courage to listen to it.
Published under the title Strategic Warning: Failure 2026, the report brings together testimony from active duty and reserve soldiers, IDF lookouts, former senior security officials and residents of communities near Gaza. It identifies seven warning signs that, according to its authors, suggest that some of the patterns preceding October 7 may be returning.
The report argues that while Israel’s strategic language has changed, the underlying tendency to manage threats rather than confront them may not have changed enough. Before October 7, the central assumption was that Hamas had been deterred. Today, according to the report, that confidence has shifted toward arrangements such as the yellow line, future demilitarization and international enforcement mechanisms that have not yet demonstrated that they can prevent Hamas from rebuilding.
The October Council maintains that Hamas has not been disarmed and continues to recruit, manufacture weapons and restore governing structures. Soldiers and lookouts reportedly described Hamas operatives approaching or crossing the yellow line, gathering intelligence and testing how quickly the IDF responds. Some soldiers said authorization to act was delayed or denied, leaving them feeling that they were once again being instructed to contain a threat rather than eliminate it.
These allegations, together with concerns about reserve manpower and the protection of border communities, are detailed in the Hebrew report and accompanying coverage. An English summary is available from Ynetnews, and the Jerusalem Post also reported on the council’s principal findings.
These are serious claims, but they remain claims gathered by the October Council, some from anonymous sources. They should not automatically be treated as independently proven facts. At the same time, after October 7, they cannot be dismissed simply because they are uncomfortable, politically inconvenient or difficult to verify publicly.
The strongest part of the report is not any single allegation about troop levels or operational orders. It is the warning about institutional culture.
The report describes soldiers and lookouts who are reportedly afraid to raise concerns, former officials who speak openly in corridors but become more cautious in formal meetings and professionals who fear being labeled alarmist or troublesome. The Jerusalem Post’s account highlights the council’s contention that some soldiers remain fearful of warning their commanders about developing dangers.
If those accounts are even partly accurate, Israel has not yet absorbed one of the most important lessons of October 7.
Intelligence is not simply information gathered by cameras, sensors and sophisticated surveillance systems. Intelligence depends on human beings being willing to say, “Something is wrong,” and on leaders being prepared to listen when that warning challenges what they already believe.
A healthy security system does not merely tolerate dissent. It actively seeks it. It protects the junior lookout who sees something that does not fit the accepted explanation. It invites officers to challenge prevailing assumptions without fearing damage to their careers. It understands that the person raising the alarm may turn out to be mistaken, but that silencing that person could be catastrophic.
The Psychological Cost of Feeling That Nothing Has Changed
There’s another dimension to this report that I feel deserves even greater attention. These warnings are reaching a country that has already endured nearly three years of bereavement, displacement, reserve duty, disrupted family life, hostage anguish, missile attacks and prolonged uncertainty.
We should be careful about describing an entire nation as clinically traumatized. People respond to terrible events differently, and emotional distress is not automatically a mental disorder. Yet the evidence of widespread psychological strain is undeniable.
A nationwide prospective study published in eClinicalMedicine found that the prevalence of probable post-traumatic stress disorder increased from 16.2 percent before the attack to 29.8 percent afterward. The study also found substantial increases in probable anxiety and depression and concluded that October 7 had a broad and significant effect on the mental health of both Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel.
The State Comptroller’s special report on mental health care following October 7 was equally alarming. A survey conducted by the Comptroller’s office found that 38 percent of participants reported moderate or severe symptoms of post trauma, depression, anxiety or some combination of them. The Comptroller estimated that approximately three million Israelis could be experiencing symptoms while many face long waits or inadequate access to care.
Against that knowledge, reports that lookouts are again seeing danger and again feel unheard do more than generate political controversy. They reopen a profound psychological wound.
For many Israelis, October 7 shattered more than the sense of physical safety. It damaged trust in the systems that were supposed to protect them. When people now hear that warning signs may once again be minimized, their fear is not abstract. It is connected to a lived memory of what happened when official reassurances proved tragically wrong.
This can intensify hypervigilance, the feeling that one must remain constantly alert because those in authority may not recognize or communicate the danger. It can make parents more fearful about sending children to the army, residents more reluctant to return to border communities and reservists less confident that their concerns will be heard. It can disturb sleep, concentration and family life and deepen feelings of helplessness, anger and betrayal.
For soldiers and lookouts, the psychological burden may be even greater. Seeing what appears to be a threat while feeling unable to respond can produce more than fear. It can create moral distress: the anguish of knowing what one believes should be done while being prevented from doing it. If a person also fears punishment for speaking, that distress can become isolation, guilt and despair.
Mental health care cannot substitute for sound security policy. Therapy cannot reassure people whose legitimate security questions remain unanswered. Resilience does not mean teaching citizens to tolerate preventable danger or asking soldiers to manage their anxiety while their warnings are ignored.
Institutional accountability is itself part of national recovery.
People are better able to regain a sense of safety when they believe that leaders are telling them the truth, mistakes are being investigated and lessons are producing visible change. Clear communication reduces uncertainty. Honest acknowledgment of failures helps rebuild trust. Protecting those who speak up gives soldiers and civilians a greater sense of agency. A credible system of accountability tells a wounded public that what happened mattered and that every reasonable effort is being made to prevent it from happening again.
Mental Health Must Become a National Priority
The October Council’s report does not establish every allegation it contains, nor does it replace an official investigation. The council has presented the report as a warning requiring independent examination, not as a final determination of responsibility.
That examination must now take place.
Israel needs transparent answers about whether border communities have sufficient protection, whether reserve reductions are compromising readiness, whether reports from lookouts are reaching senior commanders and whether operational policies allow developing threats to be addressed effectively. It must also determine whether officers and security professionals can challenge accepted assumptions without fearing personal or professional consequences.
At the same time, mental health cannot continue to be treated as a secondary consequence of security policy. Israel must place the mental health of its citizens, of all of us, at the forefront of its national priorities.
This means providing high-quality, accessible and timely treatment, with genuine continuity of care for as long as people need it. It means support for soldiers and reservists, bereaved and displaced families, survivors, and each and every citizen – children and adults whose wounds may not be immediately visible.
Israel should study the best mental health systems and trauma care models in the world, adopt what has been proven to work and then strive to become even better. Success cannot be measured merely by announcing a program, opening a hotline, funding a short-term initiative or counting how many people passed through a service. Providing something is not the same as providing effective care.
The real questions are whether people can obtain help when they need it, whether treatment is delivered by properly trained professionals, whether it is evidence informed and culturally appropriate, whether patients experience meaningful improvement and whether anyone follows up when they remain unwell. Mental health policy must be judged by outcomes, not by whether officials can check a box and say that a service exists.
The State Comptroller has already called for a comprehensive and long term national mental health response, including accessible treatment, measurable goals, attention to high risk populations, proper funding and coordination among the health, welfare, education and finance ministries. That response should be treated as essential national infrastructure, not as an optional social service.
Truth and transparency are also essential to psychological recovery. People cannot rebuild a sense of safety when important questions remain unanswered, warnings are silenced or responsibility is continually deferred. Honest investigation, clear communication and visible accountability help restore the trust that trauma so often destroys.
This is not an impossible task. Israel has the knowledge, professionals, communities and capacity to do it. What is required is the willingness to listen, to learn from the best and to demand excellence rather than adequacy.
We cannot promise that every attack will be prevented. However, we can insist that warnings will be heard, failures will be examined and the psychological wounds of our citizens will no longer be pushed aside.
Protecting Israel must mean protecting not only our borders and our bodies, but also our minds, our trust and our ability to live with hope. The mental health of Israel’s citizens, of all of us, must now be placed at the forefront. Not as a chant preceding an election, not as a temporary emergency response and not as another box to be checked, but as a lasting national commitment measured by the quality of care people actually receive and the lives that care helps rebuild.
