Israel learned of Hamas’ attack plan a year ago but ignored it

Middle East

The American newspaper “The New York Times” said on Friday that Israel was aware of the plans for the attack launched on October 7 by the Hamas movement against cities, settlements and camps adjacent to the Gaza Strip, but Israeli officials rejected the information presented to them and they described it as “ambitious.” And then they ignored him.

The newspaper said in a lengthy report that Israeli officials obtained Hamas’s plan for the attack a full year before it occurred, and said this appears in documents and emails that described the attack as the “Wall of Jericho”.

According to the newspaper, the 40-page document precisely specified the timing of the attack and the extent of damage that would occur.

The newspaper points out that the document does not specify a date for the operation, but describes it as “a systematic attack to overrun the forts surrounding the Gaza Strip and take control of crucial Israeli cities, including the headquarters of the division responsible for the Strip”. .” He also said that Hamas implemented the plan meticulously.

He added that the document obtained by Israel about the Hamas attack had been widely circulated among the military and intelligence, but it was unclear whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or senior leaders had seen it.

He pointed out that Israeli officials concluded that if the army had taken the document seriously, “it would have succeeded in preventing or perhaps mitigating the Hamas attack.”

The document speaks more precisely of a barrage of missiles and drones that destroyed security cameras and automated defense systems, followed by the crossing of fighters to the Israeli side by parachute, car and on foot, elements that were at the center of the attack of October 7th. .

However, according to an internal Israeli army document obtained by the New York Times, it was “not possible to determine” whether the Hamas leadership had “fully” approved this plan and how it could be translated into reality.

In July, an analyst from the elite Intelligence Unit 8200 warned that the military exercises conducted by Hamas resemble, in many respects, the attack plan described in the “Wall of Jericho” document. But a colonel from the military division responsible for Gaza ruled out this scenario, calling it “completely imaginary.”

“I categorically refute the idea that this scenario is imaginary… it is a war plan” and not simply an attack “on a village,” this analyst wrote in encrypted emails seen by the newspaper.

He added: “We had a similar experience 50 years ago on the Southern Front in a scenario that seemed imaginary. History could repeat itself if we are not careful,” referring to the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

The New York Times reported that although the “Jericho Wall” document had been circulated within the Israeli military hierarchy, it was not known whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government had seen it.

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