Head of Israeli spy agency Unit 8200 resigns over 7 October failings

The commander of Israel’s military surveillance agency, Unit 8200, has announced his resignation, publicly accepting responsibility for failings that contributed to the deadly 7 October attacks.

Yossi Sariel said on Tuesday that he had informed his superiors of his intention to step down after the completion of an initial investigation into Unit 8200’s role in failures surrounding the Hamas-led assault last year.

In an emotional four-page letter to staff, Sariel said: “I did not fulfil the task 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.”

He added: “The responsibility for 8200’s part in the intelligence and operational failure falls squarely on me.”

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Sariel is the latest Israeli senior defence and security official to announce their resignation over failures relating to the attacks last year on southern Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed nearly 1,200 people and kidnapped about 240.

After the assault, Unit 8200 – and Sariel’s leadership of the once vaunted military unit – came under intense scrutiny over its role in what is widely considered to have been one of the Israeli intelligence community’s biggest failures .

Sariel’s identity as the commander of Unit 8200 – which is comparable to the US National Security Agency or GCHQ in the UK – was previously a closely guarded secret in Israel. However, in April the Guardian revealed how the spy chief had left his identity exposed online for several years.

The security lapse was linked to a book Sariel published in 2021 using a pen name. The book, which articulated a radical vision for how artificial intelligence could transform intelligence and military operations, left a digital trail to a private Google account created in Sariel’s name.

The blunder prompted a wave of criticism and ridicule of Sariel in Israeli media and placed further pressure on the cyber-intelligence chief, who has also faced accusations that he presided of a culture of “technological hubris” at Unit 8200 at the expense of more old-fashioned intelligence methods.

Since 7 October, the large unit, which sits within the intelligence branch of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), has played a critical role in Israel’s 11-month offensive in Gaza, which according to health authorities in the territory has killed at least 41,000 people.

Related: ‘The machine did it coldly’: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets

Under Sariel’s leadership, Unit 8200 appears to have embraced the vision articulated in his book, in which AI-based systems are used to fulfil increasingly complex tasks on the battlefield.

In one section of the book, Sariel heralded concepts such as AI-powered “targets machines”, descriptions of which closely resemble target recommendation systems that the IDF has relied upon in its bombardment of Gaza .

In his resignation letter, Sariel said the preliminary investigation of Unit 8200’s role in the failures behind the events of 7 October had found that its intelligence officers had compiled and circulated detailed reports on Hamas’s plans and preparations before the shock attack.

Despite this information, he said, the reports “did not succeed in overturning” basic Israeli intelligence and military assumptions about Hamas’s intentions. He said Unit 8200 did not provide critical intelligence about the date of the attack.

Although Sariel accepted personal responsibility for his unit’s failings, he pointed to wider failures across the Israeli security and political establishment.

“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,” he wrote.