From the Liveblog of
Monday, December 18, 2023
Gaza documents from 2015 identifying Israeli officers reportedly found by troops
A trove of secret documents reportedly seized by Israeli troops in the Gazan city of Khan Younis points to evidence that Palestinian terrorists were studying the identities of senior Israeli officers some eight years ago, even as the Strip struggled to recover from a devastating war the year before.
Channel 13 news airs pictures of some of the documents, which are marked “restricted” and date from 2015, according to the report. The papers include pictures purporting to show military and intelligence officers members of the Israel Defense Forces general staff, as well as then-army chief Gadi Eisenkot and then-defense minister Avigdor Liberman.
Other papers contain information about the IDF’s organizational structure.
The army said Sunday that troops had raided the offices of the commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis battalion and the vacation homes of several senior Hamas commanders, including the terror group’s Gaza leader, Yahya Sinwar. Troops also raided an outpost belonging to the terror group’s Deir al-Balah battalion, seizing intelligence materials.
Israel fought a major war against Hamas in 2014 during which Hamas-led terrorists carried out several small-scale infiltrations into Israel via tunnels dug beneath the Gaza border. A short time after the war, the army said there was evidence that Hamas had been planning a much larger incursion via the tunnels, on a scale that may have rivaled October 7 attacks.
Gianluca Pacchiani contributed to this report.
