Israel knew of Hamas attack a year before it happened, dismissed warning: Report

Nearly two months into the Israel-Hamas war, a new report has suggested that officials in Israel had received documents detailing the planned Hamas attack, a year before it happened.

Further, it suggests the Israeli officials dismissed the documents as ‘overly ambitious’ and something ‘not possible for Hamas’ to carry out.

According to The New York Times, it reviewed the 40-page document titled ‘Jericho Wall’, which did not mention a specific date as to when Hamas would carry out the assault.

However, approximately a year later (on October 7, 2023), Hamas carried out the attack exactly as detailed in the document, the report stated.

ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR: WHAT PRE-WAR DOCUMENT SUGGESTED

The document stated the Hamas terrorists would use a barrage of rockets and drones to attack Israel. The terror group would also make use of security cameras and automated machine guns along the border, while gunmen would enter the country on motorcycles and on foot, it stated, all of which happened on October 7 – the day the assault was first reported.

The plan also revealed sensitive information about the positioning of the Israeli military forces.

The report did not state as to when Prime Minister Netanyahu or other top officials saw the document, but stated experts in Netanyahu’s country determined that such an attack, as illustrated in the document, was beyond the capabilities of Hamas.

In July this year (three months before the attack), a veteran analyst with Unit 8200, Israel’s signals intelligence agency, warned that Hamas had conducted an intense, daylong training exercise that appeared similar to what was outlined in the blueprint. However, the concerns were again brushed off by a colonel, the report suggested.

Meanwhile, last month, Israel’s domestic security service chief took responsibility for the intelligence failures that allowed Hamas to carry out the deadliest attack on the Jewish state.

Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet, said that the lack of warning about the Hamas attack was his responsibility.

“Despite a series of actions we undertook, regrettably, we failed to provide a sufficient warning that would have allowed us to thwart the attack. As the head of the organisation, the responsibility for this falls on me,” he said in a letter to the organisation’s employees as per Israel-based Haaretz.

Israel’s security agencies like Mossad and Shin Bet are known for their intelligence-gathering capabilities but Hamas’s attack shocked many experts, who could not believe that a terrorist organisation could pull off an assault of this nature.

The series of attacks by Hamas terrorists and the counterstrikes by Israel has led to the death of 1,200 people in Netanyahu’s country. Additionally, more than 13,000 Palestinians have died since the war began.

The terror group also held nearly 240 people as hostages, some of whom have been released as both sides agreed to a ceasefire in recent days.