A report outlining Hamas’s preparations for its October 7 strike on Israel was shared among Israeli authorities a year before the attack, reported Yahoo News from the NY Times on Friday.
The NY Times obtained a copy of the roughly 40-page document that purportedly detailed plans to raid important military stations and cities, as well as tactics for overpowering Israeli fortifications surrounding the Gaza Strip. However, the document did not specify a timetable for the operation.
The plot, which Israeli police had code-named the “Jericho Wall,” called for an assault of rockets, drones meant to take out automatic machine guns and surveillance cameras along the border, and gunmen to infiltrate Israel by paragliding, motorcycling, and on foot.
The Times stated that at first, leaders dismissed the attack plans, saying they were too intricate for Hamas to carry out.
Hamas had participated in a training exercise akin to the blueprint’s specifications, an experienced analyst with Israel’s signals intelligence agency reportedly alerted the Times three months before the strike. Its warnings were, however, disregarded by a colonel in the Gaza division, according to emails obtained by the newspaper.
“I utterly refute that the scenario is imaginary,” the analyst wrote in an email. “It is a plan designed to start a war,” she added. “It’s not just a raid on a village.”
Leaked emails from the Israeli military’s 8200 cyber-intelligence unit were previously uncovered by Israel’s Channel 12, according to The Guardian. The NCO was the source of the alert.
“They are training, in large forces, for a big event,” the NCO stated, defending her conclusions. “This serves as practice for the real deal; it is not a power parade.”
Following the October attack, Israeli authorities informed Axios that Israeli intelligence had observed anomalous behavior from Hamas agents in Gaza the night before the attack. Israeli commanders chose to hold off on deploying IDF units near Gaza on high alert after holding high-level meetings the day before, according to Axios. After a few hours, Hamas launched an offensive.
In another story, the Times stated that officials had privately acknowledged that Israel might have lessened or even stopped Hamas’s fatal offensive if the military had taken these warnings seriously and moved to strengthen the south.