The documents, recovered by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the Gaza Strip and published by the Amit Terrorism and Intelligence Research Institute, reveal that Hamas had meticulously planned the October 7 massacre more than a year before it was carried out. They also expose Sinwar’s unwavering commitment to Hamas’s founding objective: the destruction of Israel through mass murder and conquest.
The operational planning was astonishingly detailed. Sinwar envisioned breaching the border simultaneously at 25 locations using approximately 2,500 terrorists in the opening assault.
Sinwar estimated that approximately 10,000 “well-trained fighters” would eventually be required to carry out the operation successfully. Each Israeli community was assigned specific assault teams. Military bases were designated for destruction. Strategic road junctions were mapped and allocated to specialized units. Every aspect of the operation had been carefully calculated.
These were not defensive plans. They were invasion plans.
Perhaps the most disturbing revelation concerns Sinwar’s own understanding of the consequences of his actions. He fully anticipated that Israel would respond with overwhelming force. “The enemy will not hesitate to use all the means and weapons at its disposal,” he wrote. “It may even use a nuclear bomb.”
Despite this extraordinary assessment, Sinwar concluded that the invasion should proceed because “this campaign is a battle of life or death.”
He deliberately chose to launch the attack because advancing Hamas’s ideological objective – the destruction of Israel – was more important to him than the lives of the Palestinians under his rule.
This is perhaps the clearest evidence yet that Hamas has never been a national liberation movement primarily concerned with improving the lives of Palestinians. Rather, it is an Islamist terrorist organization prepared to sacrifice its own people in the pursuit of its ideological war against Israel.
The lesson from these documents is that Hamas remains committed to the same objectives that guided its founders nearly four decades ago: eliminating Israel through violence and replacing it with an Islamist state.
Hamas is but one component of a broader Iranian strategy aimed at undermining American influence and destabilizing pro-Western Arab governments throughout the region, apparently to drive US forces out of the region, thereby leaving the run of the Middle East, unimpeded, to the ruthless Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps now ruling Iran.
The October 7 massacre was not an aberration. It was the realization of a strategy, reportedly conceived seven years in advance. Preventing another October 7 requires more than temporary ceasefires or diplomatic initiatives. It requires ensuring that Hamas can never again function as either a military force or a political authority.
Anything less invites more catastrophes, as we have seen for 47 years, from Iran’s attacks on Israel, Arab neighbors, brutalized citizens, the United States, and the West.
Many Western politicians, diplomats, academics and media commentators have argued that the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group launched its October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel because of the Israeli “blockade” on the Gaza Strip, from the necessity by Israel to prevent Hamas from smuggling in weapons with the sole purpose of destroying its Jewish neighbor.
Others claimed that economic hardship and humanitarian conditions had driven Hamas to carry out the deadliest attack against Jews since the Holocaust. Some argued that Hamas had by then evolved into a pragmatic movement interested in governing the Gaza Strip and finally willing to coexist with Israel.
Recently disclosed documents handwritten by the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar have irrefutably demolished these claims.
The documents, recovered by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the Gaza Strip and published by the Amit Terrorism and Intelligence Research Institute, reveal that Hamas had meticulously planned the October 7 massacre more than a year before it was carried out. They also expose Sinwar’s unwavering commitment to Hamas’s founding objective: the destruction of Israel through mass murder and conquest.
These documents should at last put an end to the fantasy that Hamas could ever be transformed into a moderate political party or persuaded to abandon its jihad (holy war) against Israel.
Far from seeking to ease the suffering of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Hamas knowingly launched an operation that it understood would bring unprecedented destruction upon the territory it claimed to govern.
Hamas simply did not care.
The captured documents show that October 7 was not a spontaneous outburst of violence or a desperate reaction to economic conditions. It was a carefully designed military campaign whose objectives included capturing territory, overrunning military bases, seizing more than 220 Israeli communities, taking hostages, and inflicting maximum casualties on Israeli civilians.
One handwritten document dated August 24, 2022 outlines Sinwar’s instructions for launching what he called the “decisive campaign.” It includes detailed operational directives covering every stage of the invasion, from deception measures designed to lull Israel into complacency to the breaching of the border fence, psychological warfare, and the documentation of atrocities committed against Israeli civilians and soldiers.
The deception phase alone exposes the calculated nature of Hamas’s preparations.
Sinwar instructed his operatives to conduct “intensive” activities in the Gaza Strip during the weeks preceding the attack while ensuring that these movements appeared routine so Israel would not suspect that an unprecedented invasion was imminent.
These measures included directing Hamas forces to train for operational readiness but to do so openly and document it with television crews. Sinwar believed concealing the exercises would alert Israeli security, whereas doing them openly would create the illusion that the drills were “just for show.”
Sinwar also ordered the resumption of violent confrontations with Israeli troops along the border in the weeks before the attack under the guise of a crisis related to the economic situation in the Gaza Strip.
“Deception was central to Hamas’ strategic preparations for the October 7, 2023 attack and massacre,” according to the Amit Terrorism and Intelligence Research Institute.
“[T]he combined elements of the plan were intended to create the false impression that Hamas had been deterred, especially since Operation Guardian of the Walls in May 2021, and that it neither wanted nor was capable of launching an offensive attack on Israeli territory. Ultimately, the plan successfully misled Israel’s security establishment and decision-makers, who believed Hamas had indeed been deterred and was focused on governance in the Gaza Strip and improving the Gazans’ living conditions, and its public military exercises were nothing more than a demonstration of strength.”
Hamas was not reacting impulsively to political developments. It was patiently preparing for one of the most sophisticated terrorist operations in modern times.
The operational planning was astonishingly detailed. Sinwar envisioned breaching the border simultaneously at 25 locations using approximately 2,500 terrorists in the opening assault. The objective was not just to penetrate Israeli defenses but to seize strategic road junctions and military installations, disrupt Israeli military reinforcements, and provide Hamas fighters with freedom of movement deep inside Israeli territory. Additional assault waves would follow according to detailed operational maps prepared long in advance.
Another document written on the same day expands the invasion plan even further. It calls for the seizure of more than 220 Israeli communities, including kibbutzim, towns and cities. Sinwar estimated that approximately 10,000 “well-trained fighters” would eventually be required to carry out the operation successfully. Each Israeli community was assigned specific assault teams. Military bases were designated for destruction. Strategic road junctions were mapped and allocated to specialized units. Every aspect of the operation had been carefully calculated.
These were not defensive plans. They were invasion plans.
Also revealing are Sinwar’s instructions concerning Israeli civilians. The documents call for the “expulsion” of Israeli residents, prioritizing women and children, while men between the ages of 17 and 50 were to be taken hostage. Terrorists were instructed to confiscate telephones and personal documents. Entire communities were to be emptied. Large Israeli cities were to be evacuated “toward the sea.”
The intention was not simply to attack Israel but to conquer territory and remove its population.
The reality proved even more barbaric. During the October 7 massacre, Hamas terrorists ignored even these written instructions. Instead of limiting hostage-taking to military-age men, they abducted babies, children, women, and elderly civilians. Those who were not kidnapped were often murdered in cold blood. Entire families were slaughtered in their homes, and many of the atrocities were filmed and broadcast by the terrorists themselves.
Perhaps the most disturbing revelation concerns Sinwar’s own understanding of the consequences of his actions. He fully anticipated that Israel would respond with overwhelming force. “The enemy will not hesitate to use all the means and weapons at its disposal,” he wrote. “It may even use a nuclear bomb.”
Despite this extraordinary assessment, Sinwar concluded that the invasion should proceed because “this campaign is a battle of life or death.”
This single passage destroys another widespread misconception – that Hamas was acting in the interests of Gaza’s civilian population.
The Hamas leader knew that the invasion would likely trigger massive destruction in the Gaza Strip. Nevertheless, he deliberately chose to launch the attack because advancing Hamas’s ideological objective – the destruction of Israel – was more important to him than the lives of the Palestinians under his rule.
This is perhaps the clearest evidence yet that Hamas has never been a national liberation movement primarily concerned with improving the lives of Palestinians. Rather, it is an Islamist terrorist organization prepared to sacrifice its own people in the pursuit of its ideological war against Israel.
Hamas leaders continue publicly to praise the October 7 massacre and repeatedly promise to carry out similar attacks in the future.
“We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs,” said senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad. “We must teach Israel a lesson and we will do this again and again. The Al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth because we have the determination, the resolve, and the capabilities to fight.”
More importantly, the organization has not abandoned its strategic alliance with Iran, which continues to finance, arm, and train Hamas as part of Tehran’s long-term effort to surround Israel with terrorist proxies.
This is why Hamas represents a threat not only to Israel. The Iranian regime and its network of proxies have repeatedly targeted American forces in the Middle East, attacked international shipping lanes, and launched missiles and drones against several Arab Gulf states. Hamas is but one component of a broader Iranian strategy aimed at undermining American influence and destabilizing pro-Western Arab governments throughout the region, apparently to drive US forces out of the region, thereby leaving the run of the Middle East, unimpeded, to the ruthless Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps now ruling Iran.
The newly uncovered documents also raise an uncomfortable problem for the Trump Administration. More than six months have passed since President Donald J. Trump announced his plan for ending the war in the Gaza Strip and called for the demilitarization of the Strip. Yet Hamas remains in power. The terrorist organization has tightened its grip on much of Gaza, restored command structures, recruited thousands of new fighters, and resumed manufacturing weapons while rebuilding parts of its tunnel network.
The lesson from these documents is that Hamas remains committed to the same objectives that guided its founders nearly four decades ago: eliminating Israel through violence and replacing it with an Islamist state. So long as this ideology survives, Hamas will remain a mortal threat not only to Israel but also to regional stability, America’s Arab allies, and the broader interests of the United States.
The October 7 massacre was not an aberration. It was the realization of a strategy, reportedly conceived seven years in advance. Preventing another October 7 requires more than temporary ceasefires or diplomatic initiatives. It requires ensuring that Hamas can never again function as either a military force or a political authority.
Anything less invites more catastrophes, as we have seen for 47 years (here, here, here and here), from Iran’s attacks on Israel, Arab neighbors, brutalized citizens, the United States (here, here, here and here), and the West.
egretnewseditor@gmail.com
