AMNA NAWAZ: For months, there has been a critical question lurking behind the Israel-Hamas conflict: How did Israel's vaunted military and intelligence services fail to recognize the elaborate plans Hamas was making for its unprecedented widespread attack on October 7?

As William Brangham details, a new report sheds light on how Israel was caught off guard so disastrously.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: On the morning of October 7, Hamas deployed a slew of techniques it had never used before, seemingly catching the nation of Israel completely by surprise.

It flew drones into Israel, dropping explosives onto Israeli surveillance towers.

It used motorized paragliders to fly its soldiers from Gaza into Israel.

It used heavy machinery to punch holes into barrier walls, through which armed attackers poured into Israel, charging into unsuspecting military outposts and kibbutzes, killing hundreds at random, and seizing hostages.

The attack was preceded by one thing Hamas was known for, launching a barrage of rockets from Gaza into Israel.

In the days that followed October 7, there were reports that low-level analysts had reported seeing Hamas agents rehearsing some parts of this attack, but those warnings were dismissed.

But according to a new report from The New York Times, Israeli intelligence had obtained more than a year ago a 40-page document detailing virtually the exact attack plan that Hamas executed on October 7.

Reporter Adam Goldman is one of the journalists who broke this story.

Adam Goldman, thank you so much for being here.

You obtained this roughly 40 page document, which you report Israel had in its hands for more than a year.

Israel even gave it a name, called it "Jericho Wall."

This report circulated amongst leaders in Israel's intelligence services and the military.

So, how is it that they seemed so unprepared when this plan actually was enacted?

ADAM GOLDMAN, The New York Times: The Israelis took this document seriously.

They -- you can imagine the time and effort they invested into obtaining it, right?

It was a closely held document, and they scrutinized it in different -- different parts of the intelligence community scrutinized it.

And, ultimately, I believe, and -- I believe in May of last year a -- the Gaza division, which is in charge of the security of that particular area by the Gaza Strip, a commander wrote that this was a compass, right?

And they didn't believe that Hamas had reached the capability it had outlined in this in this battle plan.

In other words, the compass was the direction where they wanted to go, but they had yet to arrive there.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So the sense was that Israeli officials simply believed that Hamas didn't have the -- just simply weren't ready and/or prepared to do something so audacious?

ADAM GOLDMAN: Yes, exactly so.

They knew they would like to at one point.

It was sort of like imagine like a five-year plan, like the military does for its planning.

That's the way they viewed this.

And at the end of the five years, this is where they wanted to be.

And the Israelis just didn't think they had the capabilities.

Of course, some within the Israeli government felt that -- sorry -- the Israeli intelligence services had felt that, in fact, Hamas had narrowed the gap and had gotten much closer to achieving its goals.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And how do you know that was the Israelis' interpretation of this?

ADAM GOLDMAN: Well, it was clear to us in the in interviews that The Times had done, as well as an e-mail chain that we obtained involving a veteran Hamas analyst working for an Israeli intelligence officer who wrote in this e-mail chain in July of this year of 2023 that the gap had been narrowed, and it seemed that Hamas, after she learned about a training exercise, was going to implement at least part of this battle plan, though, while the battle plan talked about, using up to, I believe, 2,000 Hamas commandos, they thought the number might be smaller.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And again, as you report, if you have an Israeli intelligence agent who sees a version of this plan being rehearsed and says, guys, this seems to be the document -- a version of the document that we have been studying, what is your sense as to why her warnings were not heeded?

ADAM GOLDMAN: She herself didn't challenge the assessment that Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, was in fact ready to go to war.

In fact, the conventional wisdom was he didn't -- was not interested in going to war, and she didn't challenge that in her analysis in these e-mails.

She also didn't give the -- she didn't place a time on the attack.

And I think one of the issues here is making a convincing argument to military and political leaders that an attack was in fact imminent.

It's not clear to me how far her warnings reached at the time, but there were others who -- there were others -- there were other veteran analysts who agreed with their assessment.

And then there were others who felt this was imaginary.

And they literally used that word, that this -- Hamas wanted to do this, but, of course, they weren't ready to.

There are many, many parallels to the attacks on the 9/11.

It was a lack of imagination, that they failed to envision or at least understand the true capabilities of Hamas and what they intended to do.

They also, it seems, weren't willing to challenge their own conventional wisdom.

And, in a sense, confirmation bias had seeped into the intelligence thinking.

And people might have been in an echo chamber.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, Adam Goldman of The New York Times, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with us.

ADAM GOLDMAN: Thank you for having me.