Were IDF Troops Moved to Hawara Prior to Oct. 7?

A staple claim of Israel's Left is that a day or so prior to October 7th, significant enough numbers of soldiers were moved from the Southern Front Command to the area of Samaria and, specifically, to Hawara to protect the succah that MK Tzvi Succot had set up in the town 

as a protest against repeated terror attacks against Jews traveling through the town. That move of soldiers supposedly affected the ability of the IDF to defend the Gaza Envelope area from the Hamas-led invasion and slaughter. It wasn't clear exactly how many but the rumor made its rounds. The assertion was the "settlers" had "blood on their hands". One tweet claimed 25 battalions were moved over (that's thousands of soldiers).

Here's from a news report quoting Roy Sharon of Kan News, Channel 11:

Over 100 soldiers diverted from Gaza to Judea and Samaria just days before massacre. Two troop companies were relocated from the Gaza Division to Judea and Samaria two days before the Hamas massacre.

It went on:

"Two companies from the Commando Brigade that were reinforcing the Gaza Division during the holidays (as part of a General Staff standby, not as a routine security force) were called from the Gaza envelope to the Huwara region two days before the massacre. Over one hundred soldiers were indeed diverted from the jurisdiction of the Gaza Division to that of the Samaria Brigade," Sharon wrote.

He noted that "to the best of my inquiries, these companies (that left the Gaza Division) were not replaced with other forces; the IDF Spokesperson did respond to this question as well." Sharon also mentions the fact that just a day ago, he reported that the IDF did not move forces from Gaza to Judea and Samaria.

Now Sharon claims: "Unfortunately, the information that IDF officers gave me was erroneous (yesterday they explained that they did not remember/know that two companies came from the Gaza envelope)."

Some of the stories that appeared (in Hebrew) are here; and here. The IDF Spokesman denied the facts but they belief in their supposed truth persisted. Already on Oct. 6, Naor Narkis tweeted that soldiers had been transferred to guard the MK's succah and he was endangering them unnecessarily.

We now have the actual internal IDF document that established, prior to Oct. 6, the manpower order to move troops over:

and it proves that troops were set to be moved from the South to Huwara already in August as part of a quarterly program arrangementand moreover, the military document proves that on the day before Oct. 7, forces from the area surrounding Gaza had not been sent to protect MK Zvi Sukkot's protest tent in Huwara.

As explained,

...the transfer of the forces to reinforcement positions throughout Samaria was part of a quarterly IDF plan from as early as August last year, and therefore is not connected to MK Zvi Sukkot's protest tent.  According to the quarterly plan from August, which was disclosed by the head of the Samaria Council, no battalions were brought there from Gaza, but according to the same pre-planned reinforcement program, a force of [dozens of] soldiers from the Egoz unit – as defined in the document as "General Staff Reserve" (meaning soldiers not belonging to the Gaza area) - replaced a group of soldiers..."

In fact, those soldiers arrived a half-day prior to the terrorist incident which led to the protest succh being erected. 

Sometimes, one just cannot trust the news. Especially when Jews resident in Judea and Samaria are involved.

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