Reuters International published a report based on many sources in the leadership of the Hamas movement, as well as Israeli officials.

The agency quoted a senior Hamas leader as saying that the plan that was implemented was prepared two years ago, and many training sessions were being conducted on it. On the other hand, there was an indication from the movement’s leadership that it wanted economic facilities and money more than others, which is what prompted the Israeli security services to raise such an assessment of the political level.

He stated that his movement was concerned with this step in order to direct its pre-emptive strike.

The Hamas leader said that the movement refrained for quite some time from participating in any of the previous rounds in order to achieve the implementation of this plan.

He added: Hamas was able to create a complete image that it was not ready for a military adventure against Israel. Hamas used an unprecedented intelligence tactic to deceive Israel for several months, by creating the impression that it was not ready to enter into a conflict with Israel while it was preparing for this huge operation. As quoted by Reuters.

Israeli officials admitted that they believed that Hamas was concerned with facilities and economic benefits and not with the conflict, but this concept collapsed, while an Israeli military spokesman admitted that they were wrong with such estimates.

A senior security official admitted that the Israeli security establishment had been misled, and said: They made us believe that they wanted money, and during this time their training was aimed at implementing this plan when they were ready for it. Pointing out that these exercises did not indicate Hamas' intentions or turn on a red light among the security services about what it was planning.

Meanwhile, the Hamas official said that these exercises were taking place openly and in open areas, and that sometimes the Al-Qassam Brigades included members of Palestinian factions to participate in these exercises, the aim of which was to train for such operations by storming settlements with a surprise attack.

The Hamas official revealed that the main element of the plan was to prevent its leakage, and therefore many of the movement’s senior leaders were not aware of it, and that the 1,000 militants who participated in the surprise attack did not know the exact goal of the exercises they conducted until at point zero.

Speaking to Reuters, an Israeli security official admitted that the serious intelligence failure was the belief that Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, was more interested in managing the Strip than engaging in a military conflict, which prompted Israel to reduce its interest in Hamas.

Meanwhile, Israeli sources said that in addition to the intelligence failure, the readiness of the field forces was very weak, and Hamas exploited this point, especially after transferring many forces from the Gaza border to the West Bank to enhance security and control there.