Hamas used emojis to signal operatives to launch Oct. 7 assault

Hamas used a sequence of emojis sent to its operatives’ phones as a coded signal to launch the October 7, 2023, terror onslaught, according to a report now cleared for publication.

The revelation is first reported by Channel 12 news and approved by the Military Censor, more than two years after the onslaught.

It is believed that the sequence of emojis was used to instruct members of Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force to equip their phones with Israeli SIM cards to be used in Israeli territory and prepare their weapons for the attack.

At 9 p.m. on October 6, 2023, the Shin Bet security agency identified a handful of Israeli SIM cards in the hands of Hamas Nukhba terrorists being activated. The SIM cards are a Shin Bet source in Gaza, and the agency updated IDF intelligence officials on the development via WhatsApp. Later that night, more SIM cards were activated, totaling several dozen.

On the phones seized from Hamas terrorists who invaded Israel on October 7, the IDF identified that the same string of emojis was sent on two previous instances in which Hamas intended to launch its large-scale attack, in May 2023 and September 2022. In May 2023, the Shin Bet also identified dozens of Israeli SIM cards in the hands of Hamas terrorists being activated, though ultimately Hamas did not launch the attack then.

The use of the emojis by Hamas to notify its terrorists to launch the onslaught was only discovered retrospectively as part of the IDF’s investigations into October 7, and was not known in real time.