Mossad's competence is a complicated topic. Exhibit A: Yom Kippur war. They had convinced themselves that Egypt would wait on armament deliveries, so their obv

Mossad's competence is a complicated topic. Exhibit A: Yom Kippur war. They had convinced themselves that Egypt would wait on armament deliveries, so their obvious preparations for war, troop movements, and massive exercises next to the border were not a problem. Syria's obvious troop movements and cancelling of leaves weren't a problem either because obviously Syria wouldn't attack without Egypt, and Egypt would obviously wait for more Soviet shipments of armaments. Spoiler: they both attacked, and although defeated later on, demonstrated that Israel wasn't as invincible as everyone had thought, and it resulted in Sinai being returned to Egypt and normalisation of relations between Egypt and Israel (thus long-term a victory for Egypt, even if they had their asses handed to them, militarily). Exhibit B: Lillehammer affair, where Mossad mistook a random Moroccan waiter for a high level Palestinian leader, and killed him. Exhibit C: Assassination attempt against high level Hamas leader, Khaled Mashal which was a failure and seriously jeopardised the relations with Jordan. For the October 7 attacks, we simply don't know if it was a political decision to let the attacks happen, or if hubris convinced Israel/IDF/Mossad that the intelligence can't be true.