Israeli intelligence agencies are investigating whether a Shin Bet agent who held an "official position in Hamas" misled the Shin Bet ahead of the October 7 attack and whether he was a "double agent," Yedioth Ahronoth reported Wednesday.

The Shin Bet contacted the "agent" in the hours preceding the "Al-Aqsa Flood" attack on October 7, 2023, and the "agent" told them that nothing was happening in the Gaza Strip.

According to the newspaper, the Shin Bet believes that this "agent" was supposed to be aware of what was happening when he was contacted, and therefore believes he was part of a deception operation carried out by Hamas.

But even if this "agent" later learned of the attack, he did not inform the Shin Bet, and therefore his report about the absence of incidents in the Gaza Strip served as a "calming factor" for Israeli intelligence, according to the newspaper.

The background to the investigation is the "severe distress" faced by Israeli intelligence agencies in the years preceding October 7, with regard to "human resources," i.e., the failure to recruit agents, "against the backdrop of the significant achievements of Hamas military intelligence in uncovering and executing" agents.

Israeli intelligence used the "secret tool" in the Gaza Strip, a complex and sophisticated set of operational and technological programs, aimed at uncovering Hamas's hidden secrets, according to a report published by the newspaper last September.

The "secret tool" provided Israeli intelligence with critical information over the years, significantly degrading the status of the agents in Gaza.

An officer in the Israeli Military Intelligence Division described the "secret tool" as "like knowing the location of our enemies' personal diaries, in which they record their most secret secrets. We can secretly access these diaries and examine their contents," the newspaper reported.

A Shin Bet official added that this tool "makes you addicted to it, to the point that other intelligence sources, at least with regard to Gaza, are being neglected."