The newspaper quoted Israeli intelligence officers as saying, “Hamas spent more than a year planning its historic attack on Israel, after combat plans based on open source materials and high-level intelligence information.”
He stressed that “Hamas fighters entered Israel with detailed battle plans that included maps of the internal structures of military bases and civilian cities, extensive lists of weapons and equipment used by each army unit, and checklists for killing and capturing men, women and children.”
He said, “Hamas officials provided Israel with intelligence information about the Islamic Jihad movement, to reinforce the impression that they were interested in cooperating” with Israel.
The Washington Post reported, “For many years, Hamas has claimed, in its public statements and private diplomacy, that it is more interested in building up Gaza economically than in renewing the conflict with Israel.”
She noted that “Hamas has largely refrained from firing rockets at Israel after 2021. In May, it remained on the sidelines, while the Islamic Jihad movement engaged in a short-term conflict with Israel.”
Another Israeli security officer confirmed to the newspaper that Israeli army intelligence had collected evidence of plans for a large-scale Hamas attack “more than a year ago.”
He stated that the army “issued an internal warning in April regarding the infiltration of Hamas militants to target kibbutzim near” the Gaza Strip, citing “concrete evidence” that the operation would likely include hundreds of militants.
The security officer said that in August, weeks before the attack, new intelligence indicated an “imminent attack,” adding: “The Israeli army increased its preparedness and thought it had stopped the attack… They now see that this was part of Hamas’s deception.”
#details #Hamas #plans.. #deceive #Israel #year