Israeli military knew Hamas was planning attack – media

IDF agents warned that the militants were drilling for a hostage-grab operation, but were reportedly ignored by their superiors

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) warned in mid-September that Hamas was planning to invade the country and capture more than 200 hostages, Israel’s Kan broadcaster reported on Monday.

Three weeks before Hamas fighters attacked Israel on October 7, the IDF’s intelligence directorate compiled a report stating that the Palestinian militants were training for a large-scale invasion of the Jewish state, Kan has claimed, citing anonymous security sources. The document allegedly warned that dozens of Hamas commandos would take part in the raid, which would be aimed at bringing between 200 and 250 hostages back to Gaza. 

Several thousand Hamas fighters carried out the actual October 7 assault, killing around 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 hostages back to Gaza.

According to Kan’s sources, Hamas members had been spotted practicing attacks on mock IDF outposts, rehearsing how to capture military and civilian hostages, and training how to handle the captives once they were detained in Gaza.

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The document reportedly made its way to senior officials in the IDF’s Gaza Division, but was “completely ignored,” Kan stated.

Kan is not the first source to claim that Israel was forewarned about the October 7 attack. Within days of the assault, Egyptian intelligence officials said that they had repeatedly warned the Israeli government that Hamas was planning “something big” in the days leading up to October 7, but that these warnings were ignored in West Jerusalem.

Earlier in 2023, the IDF warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on at least four occasions that “Israel’s enemies” viewed the state as vulnerable to attack. However, the content of these warnings has never been made public, and Netanyahu claimed last month that they made no mention of any concrete plans by Hamas.

“Not only is there no warning in any of the documents about Hamas’s intentions to attack Israel from Gaza, but they instead give a completely opposite assessment,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement. 

READ MORE: Netanyahu decries ‘unacceptable’ Gaza pause – media

According to an Israeli source cited by American journalist Seymour Hersh last year, Netanyahu was so unconcerned with the possibility of an attack from Gaza that he ordered two thirds of the IDF troops normally stationed at Israel’s border with the enclave to provide security at an Orthodox Jewish festival in the West Bank – against the wishes of Gaza Division commanders.

With Israel’s war on Hamas entering its eighth month, retired general Benny Gantz resigned from Netanyahu’s war cabinet last week. Former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot left the cabinet shortly afterwards, with both men accusing Netanyahu of failing to develop a strategy for defeating Hamas and ending the war. Netanayhu dissolved the cabinet on Sunday, and is expected to discuss the conflict with a smaller group of ministers – including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer – from now on.