Palestinian movement Hamas kept the details of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation against Israel under wraps until its very beginning, as the final instructions were passed down orally less than an hour before the attack, a British reported on Tuesday, citing sources.
The sources include Israeli intelligence officers, experts, as well as people familiar with the details of the interrogation of detained Hamas fighters.
The decision to relay instructions verbally to thousands of Hamas fighters was the latest in a series of measures designed to deceive the Israeli surveillance system and conceal any information about the prepared attack from the network of spies in Gaza, according to the report.
The orders were first given to the commanders of battalions of 100 or more men, then to the commanders of platoons of 20 or 30 men, who, in turn, conveyed the information to the leaders of smaller units, and, finally, friends, relatives and neighbors of the fighters were told about the operation minutes before its start, the newspaper reported.
Another Palestinian movement, the Islamic Jihad, did not receive advance notice from Hamas about the incursion into Israel, but joined it once the one-billion dollar fence around the exclave was breached in several places, sources told the news agency.
It also reported that each unit was given its own target — a military base, a kibbutz, a road or a settlement. The open-air Nova music festival, where over 260 people were killed, was not one of the original targets, the report added.
Israel believes that Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, and Mohammed Deif, the commander of the Hamas military wing, al-Qassam Brigades, are the masterminds behind the October 7 attack, news paper said.
The 58-year-old Deif, whose real name is reported to be Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, joined Hamas in his early 20s. He may have been maimed in one of many assassination attempts by Israel, while his wife died in an airstrike in 2014.
The report described the 61-year-old Sinwar as one of Hamas’ founding members, who had spent more than 23 years in Israeli prisons before being freed in a lopsided prisoner swap in 2011. Following the release, he reportedly said that his experience suggested the only way to free Palestinian prisoners was by capturing Israeli soldiers.
On October 7, Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise attack against Israel from Gaza, killing and abducting people in neighboring Israeli communities. Israel retaliated with missile strikes and a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to more than 2 million people. On October 27, Israel launched a large-scale ground incursion into Gaza with the declared goal of eliminating Hamas and rescuing the hostages.
