Newspaper: Hamas planned “larger-scale attacks” on October 7th

Five weeks after Hamas' attack on Israel, new evidence has emerged revealing the contours of the movement's broader plan, a plan that analysts say was not only aimed at killing and kidnapping Israelis, according to a report by the Washington Post.

New evidence

The evidence, reported by more than a dozen current and former intelligence and security officials from four Western and Middle Eastern countries, reveals Hamas' motives for launching a strike of "historic proportions."

The findings shed new light on the tactics and methods used by Hamas to thwart initial efforts by the Israeli army to stop the attack.

After breaching the Israeli border in about 30 places, Hamas militants carried out a “mass massacre of soldiers and civilians in at least 22 Israeli villages, towns and military sites,” according to the newspaper.

Unnamed officials told The Washington Post that some of the militants were carrying enough food, ammunition and equipment for several days, and were carrying instructions to continue the incursion into Israel if the first wave of attacks succeeded, which was likely to hit larger Israeli cities.

One unit carried Hamas “reconnaissance information and maps indicating an intention to continue the attack up to the West Bank border,” according to two senior Middle East intelligence officials and a former American official with detailed knowledge of the evidence.

The newspaper confirms that Hamas has increased its communication with West Bank activists in recent months, although the movement says that it did not notify its allies in the West Bank of its plans on October 7 in advance.

The former American official who was briefed on the matter said: If that had happened, it would have been a major victory, a symbolic strike not only against Israel, but also against the Palestinian Authority.

Analysts told the Washington Post that Hamas meticulously planned and prepared for a massacre of Israeli civilians on a scale that was likely to prompt the Israeli government to send troops into Gaza, as Hamas leaders publicly expressed their willingness to accept “heavy losses,” which would likely include Many civilians died in the Strip.

Hamas was willing to accept these sacrifices as the price for starting a new wave of violent Palestinian resistance in the region and thwarting efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Arab countries, according to current and former intelligence officials and counterterrorism experts.

“They have been very clear about what will happen to Gaza next,” said a senior Israeli military official familiar with sensitive intelligence, including interrogations with Hamas fighters and intercepted communications.

Secret planning and deception at a high level

Intelligence officials the Washington Post spoke with say that planning for an attack on Israel had been underway for more than a year before the events of October 7.

Hamas officials did their best to hide these preparations, even as senior leaders dropped occasional hints about their intentions.

Throughout the Gaza Strip, Hamas conducted military maneuvers above and below ground, and trained on the use of various weapons.

Western and Middle Eastern intelligence officials said that during Hamas training, fighters carefully scanned population centers and military bases to create a matrix of potential targets.

Over the past few days, the Israeli army has focused on targeting the leaders of the “Hamas elite unit,” which experts who spoke to Al-Hurra website describe as a “commando squad.” What is that unit, what are its combat capabilities, and how many members does it have?

To obtain detailed intelligence, Hamas deployed inexpensive reconnaissance drones for use in mapping Israeli cities and military installations within a few miles of the separation wall system that Israel built to isolate Gaza at a cost of $1 billion.

Intelligence officials said Hamas obtained additional information from “day laborers” in Gaza who were allowed into Israel to work, and the movement monitored Israeli sites, studying real estate photos and social media posts depicting life inside the kibbutzim.

Exact plans for how and where to attack were limited to a small circle of elite Hamas military planners, and the most important details appear to have been withheld even from the movement's political leadership.

“They were killed while waiting for the bus, dancing at a festival, doing morning chores, and hiding as best they could,” the evidence reveals details of Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 Israelis, most of them civilians.

Israel believes that the main architect of the plan is Yahya Sinwar, the military commander of Hamas, as he and other leaders of the movement have begun issuing “hidden signals” in recent years indicating a “new practical direction.”

It was a message the Israelis wanted to hear: “Hamas does not want more wars,” said Michael Milstein, the former head of Palestinian affairs at Israeli military intelligence Aman.

To support this perception, clashes between Hamas and Israel stopped after 2021, and the movement notably refrained from intervening on several occasions when its ally in Gaza, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, fired rockets or clashed militarily with Israel.

Hamas left "Jihad"  faces her fate alone

A 3-day war in the Gaza Strip... Hamas’ calculations put it in a “spectator position”

During 3 days of battles between Israel and “Islamic Jihad” in the Gaza Strip, the Hamas movement that controls the Strip did not intervene to support “Jihad,” amid indications that the two movements were competing to “rule Gaza,” in light of wide “political and ideological” differences between the two parties. Which raises questions about the repercussions of this dispute.

For many in Israel, it was further evidence that “Hamas has changed and no longer seeks a bloody conflict.”

Some reports indicate that “Hamas officials passed intelligence information about Islamic Jihad in Palestine to the Israelis to reinforce the impression that they were cooperating,” the Washington Post confirms.

This is not to say that Hamas leaders did not occasionally call for the annihilation of Israel, and in a 2022 speech, Sinwar warned Israelis that Hamas would “march through your walls to uproot your regime.”

Unawares

Former Deputy Chairman of the Israeli National Security Council, Eran Etzion, said, “They were deceiving Israel at the strategic level, using portable radios, underground wire networks in tunnels and other communications that we could not listen to, while they were using the codes of so-called open networks, which "They knew we were listening."

In a related context, former Israeli intelligence official Amos Yadlin said that Israel “ultimately allowed the building of a Palestinian army by Hamas and kept telling itself that Hamas could be deterred,” adding, “Israel has been deceived.”

“They planned a second phase, including an attack on major Israeli cities and military bases,” said a senior Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified intelligence.

The war broke out between Israel and Hamas after a surprise attack launched by the movement on military sites and residential areas adjacent to the Gaza Strip on October 7, which led to the killing of 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and 239 people were kidnapped, according to the Israeli authorities.

Since then, Israel has responded with intense air, sea and ground bombardment on the besieged Gaza Strip, followed by a ground operation that is still ongoing. The death toll in Gaza reached 11,180, including 4,609 children and 3,100 women, in addition to 28,200 people being injured, according to what the Ministry of Defense announced. Hamas Health Ministry, Sunday.