Meeting minutes are provided agitation The secret, seized by the Israeli army and obtained by The New York Times, provides a detailed record of the planning for the October 7 attack by Hamas fighters, as well as Sinwar’s determination to persuade Hamas’ allies, Iran and Hezbollah, to join the attack or at least commit to a broader battle. With Israel if Hamas launches a surprise cross-border raid.
The documents show extensive efforts to deceive Israel On its intentions, while Hamas laid the groundwork for the October 7 attack and a regional flare-up that Sinwar hoped would cause Israel’s “collapse.”
The documents consist of minutes from 10 secret planning meetings of a small group of Hamas political and military leaders in the period leading up to the attack, inOctober 7, 2023.
The minutes include 30 pages of previously undisclosed details about the way the Hamas leadership operated and the preparations that went into its attack.
The documents, verified by the American newspaper, outline the leadership group’s key strategies and assessments:
- Hamas initially planned to carry out the attack, which it called “The big project“, in the fall of 2022. But the group delayed implementing the plan as it tried to convince Iran and Hezbollah to participate.
- As they prepared arguments directed at Hezbollah, Hamas leaders said Israel’s “domestic situation” — a reference to turmoil over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial plans to reform the judiciary — was among the reasons they were “forced to move toward a strategic battle.”
- In July 2023, Hamas sent a high-ranking official to Lebanon, where he met with a senior Iranian commander and requested assistance in striking sensitive sites at the beginning of the offensive.
- Senior Iranian commander tells Hamas that Iran and Hezbollah support it in principle, but need more time to prepare; The records do not mention the detail of the plan that Hamas presented to its allies.
- The documents also say that Hamas planned to discuss the attack in more detail in a later meeting with Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader at the time, but do not make clear whether the discussion took place.
- According to the source, Hamas felt confident in the general support of its allies, but concluded that it may need to proceed without their full participation – in part to prevent Israel from deploying an advanced new air defense system before an attack occurs.
- The decision to attack was influenced by Hamas’s desire to disrupt efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and to consolidate Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Israeli efforts to exercise greater control over Al-Aqsa Mosque.
- The widely circulated American newspaper says that Hamas avoided major confrontations with Israel for two years in 2021, in order to maximize the surprise of the October 7 attack. As the leaders saw it, they “must keep the enemy convinced that Hamas in Gaza wants calm.”
- Hamas leaders in Gaza said they briefed Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas political leader then based in Qatar, about the “big project.” It was not previously known whether Haniyeh, who was assassinated by Israel in July, was briefed on the attack before it occurred.
Introduction to war
The documents provide greater context for one of the most pivotal moments in modern Middle Eastern history, showing that it was the culmination of a years-long plan, as well as a move shaped in part by specific events following Netanyahu’s return to power in Israel in late 2022.
The extent to which Iran and Hezbollah knew about Hamas’s initial plans was one of the continuing mysteries of October 7th. The question has gained new resonance in recent weeks, following the Israeli attack on Lebanon and Iranian strikes on Israel.
But at the same time, there was no evidence that Iran played any role in the attack. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei publicly denied that Iran played any role in the attack that occurred on October 7. US officials described the intelligence as showing that key Iranian leaders were surprised by the attack, which raised suspicions that Iran played a direct role in the planning. But Hamas leaders have spoken widely about the support they received from their regional allies, and there have been scattered and sometimes conflicting reports that Iranian and Hezbollah officials helped plan the attack and train fighters.
The minutes were discovered on a computer found by Israeli soldiers in late January, during their search of an underground Hamas command center in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza, from which the group’s leaders had recently escaped.
The New York Times assessed the authenticity of the documents by sharing some of their contents with members and experts close to Hamas.
Salah al-Din al-Awawda, a Hamas member and former fighter in its military wing who is now an analyst based in Istanbul, said he was aware of some of the details described in the documents and that keeping organized notes was consistent with the group’s general practices. A Palestinian analyst familiar with Hamas’ internal operations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive topics, also confirmed some details as well as Hamas’ general structural operations that are consistent with the documents.
And it’s over Israeli armyIn a separate internal report obtained by The New York Times, the documents are authentic and represent another failure on the part of intelligence officials to prevent the October 7 attack. The New York Times also looked into the details mentioned in the meeting records to verify that they correspond to actual events.
The discovery of these records sparked accusations among Israeli intelligence services. The internal military review of the documents questioned why Israeli spies failed either to obtain them before Hamas launched its attack or to discern the strategy they described. While Israel obtained Hamas’ battle plans before the October 7 attack, Israeli leaders have repeatedly rejected the idea that Hamas has the ability or intention to implement them immediately.
Speak in symbols
The documents first refer to the operation in January 2022, when minutes show that Hamas leaders discussed the need to avoid being drawn into small skirmishes to focus on the “big project.” Israeli intelligence officers found that Hamas leaders repeatedly used the same phrase in similar contexts, but the officers did not understand what the term meant until they read documents after the attack, according to Israeli officials familiar with intelligence about Hamas leaders.
The minutes do not provide a clear list of everyone at each meeting, but they state that Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar attended all discussions, while his deputy joined at least three. Several military leaders referred to only by their nom de guerre were also listed as attending.
Israeli intelligence analysts concluded, according to several Israeli officials and the military’s assessment of the documents, that senior Hamas military commanders, Muhammad al-Deif, Marwan Issa, and Muhammad al-Sinwar, were among those listed by the alias. The Palestinian analyst familiar with the inner workings of Hamas also said he believed the minutes showed that Mohammed Deif was present.
During an April 2022 meeting, leaders celebrated how the most tense parts of Ramadan passed without major escalation, helping Hamas “hide our intentions” and “hide the big idea (our big project).” They spoke of preserving ammunition and carrying out a “large and convincing camouflage and deception operation.”
In June 2022, leaders said the operation was continuing to gain momentum: They noted that Hamas had avoided a clash with Israel after Jewish ultra-nationalists staged a provocative march through the Old City of Jerusalem in late May, reinforcing the false impression that the group was no longer seeking a major confrontation. . While Hamas leaders spoke vaguely in public about how they tried to deceive Israel in the years leading up to the attack, the transcripts reveal the extent of that deception.
At this point, preparations for the attack were about a month away from completion, according to the June 2022 minutes. Plans included striking 46 sites guarded by the Israeli military section guarding the border, then targeting a major air base and intelligence center in southern Israel, as well as towns and villages.
Commanders said it would be easier to target those residential areas if the military bases were overrun first — a prediction that proved correct on October 7. These military plans appeared to be a simplified and slightly modified version of the more detailed battle plan that Israel had intercepted in 2022 but rejected.
In reference to the extent of the secret preparation of the attack, he decided Sinwar and his subordinates that the plans should be kept secret from many lower-ranking Hamas fighters until several hours before the attack, according to minutes of the June meeting.
At the same meeting, Sinwar also briefly discussed with colleagues how a major attack on Israel would likely require sacrifices, apparently from ordinary Gazans. This was the first and only time that the hardship Palestinian civilians might suffer was alluded to on the record. Since October 7, some Hamas leaders have acknowledged that the resulting Israeli counterattack caused massive destruction, but said it was a “price” Palestinians must pay for freedom.
The Hamas leadership council, which met in September 2022, appeared ready to begin the attack within a month, during the major Jewish holidays, and Sinwar reviewed the latest battle plans. The newspaper pointed out that the documents do not explain the reason for postponing the attack, but the recurring theme is the efforts of the Hamas leadership to mobilize support for the operation from Iran and Hezbollah.
Courting allies
In December 2022, a new far-right government took power in Israel, returning Netanyahu to power. Hamas leaders indicated at a meeting the following month that they needed time to evaluate the government’s behavior, saying that Ben Gvir, the far-right minister known for his provocative actions toward Palestinians, had already made a controversial tour of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
The leaders expected the government’s actions to help them “move toward the big project” by attracting the attention of Hamas’ allies and bolstering support for their offensive.
In a meeting held in May 2023, Yahya Al-Sanwar and his colleagues expressed their satisfaction at having succeeded in spending another Ramadan without being drawn into a simple confrontation with Israel, despite tensions at Al-Aqsa Mosque and a brief escalation between Israel and Islamic Jihad, according to the source.
Once again, they seemed ready to complete their attack plans. According to the minutes, leaders discussed whether to launch it on September 25, when most Israelis celebrate Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, or on October 7, which that year coincided with the Jewish holy day Simkhat Torah. The leaders stressed the importance of avoiding any major escalation.
