According to a report by Channel 12 senior political reporter Amit Segal, on the night of October 6th, hours before the Hamas incursion into Israel and subsequent massacre of civilians, the Southern Command requested to fly planes and helicopter gunships to the sector following suspicious activity. According to the report, intelligence officials and other senior IDF representatives refused the request, on suspicion of harming intelligence sources.
Following yesterday's revelation that the IDF was alerted after it was detected that numerous Hamas operatives in Gaza had switched to Israeli SIMs during the night of October 6 as part of preparations for the invasion, but failed to do anything about it.
According to Amit Segal's report, the request for backup came after intelligence officials were alerted regarding the SIM-switching.
But the senior command continued to act contrary to warnings emanating from the field, ordering officers to refrain from moving helicopters to the sector based on the belief that the SIM switching was part of an exercise and feared the move would reveal the IDF's secret intelligence capabilities.