An unprecedented military offensive by Hamas fighters on Saturday that has left dozens of Israelis dead and hundreds more injured or taken prisoner was allowed to happen by “disarray” in the Israeli armed forces and intelligence services, said Chuck Freilich, the country’s former deputy national security adviser.

Freilich pointed out that the bloodshed comes 50 years and a day after the start of the 1973 Yom Kippur war. “That was a catastrophic failure in regards to Egypt and Syria. This is a catastrophic failure in regards to Gaza,” he told POLITICO.

“It’s a failure in terms of intelligence, operationally,” Freilich said. “It’s clear we were caught totally unprepared by this. The divisional headquarters responsible for Gaza was occupied, they’re in disarray, and so the whole response has been delayed.”

Freilich, who was deputy national security adviser in the early 2000s and is now a professor at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, said that the Israel Defense Forces will retake captured towns and villages “relatively quickly.” That will be followed “by very large-scale attacks against Hamas,” he said. “The question is whether the objective will be to conquer Gaza and topple Hamas, or just hit them very, very hard.”