Israeli counter-terrorism experts have slammed the way India handled the hostage crisis in Mumbai, especially at Nariman House where Jewish people were taken captive, saying the "colossal failure of intelligence" and slow operation meant there was "no chance" of rescue. Eight Israeli hostages at Nariman House were found dead by commandos after they stormed the building sieged by terrorists.

The experts said Israel has never experienced a coordinated attack of such magnitude. However, India failed to contain the attacks and raided Nariman House too "lackadaisically".

"When terrorists attack several places simultaneously, it's difficult to handle. However, the difficulty was compounded by the lack of prior intelligence. This was an organisation in which dozens of people were surely involved," Major General David Tzur, a former commander of the police's counter-terror unit Yamam, told the daily Ha'aretz.

"To the Indians' credit, they were determined and sought contact (with the enemy) all the time," Tzur told the daily, adding that a terrorist takeover of a hotel is "the nightmare of every counter-terrorism unit," because it is hard to effectively "cleanse" so large a site.

Being critical of the operation at Nariman House where he dubbed the twelve hour battle to liberate the building"unreasonable". There's no chance that captives will survive an incident that doesn't end within minutes of the break-in," he said. The Indians apparently assumed that the hostages had already been killed, Tzur added.

Another counter-terrorism expert, Colonel Lior Lotan, formerly a senior officer in the Army's elite Sayeret Matkal unit, said the Indians operated as if there were no hostages. "When you're rescuing captives, you enter fast, with maximum force, and try to reach the hostages as quickly as possible, even at the price of casualties," he said.

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