Report: In days prior to Oct. 7, Yahya Sinwar said ‘extraordinary act’ needed to derail Saudi normalization

Then-Hamas chief in Gaza Yahya Sinwar told associates in the days prior to October 7, 2023, that an “extraordinary act” would be required to derail normalization talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia, according to a document found by the IDF in Gaza and seen by the Wall Street Journal.

Arab intelligence officials familiar with Hamas tell the Journal that the document appears to be genuine.

It is not the first time that documents ostensibly found in Gaza have been leaked to the international press.

The Journal does not publish any images of the documents. There is no official Israeli comment.

The minutes of a meeting of Hamas’s political bureau in the Strip on October 2, 2023, cite Sinwar saying, “There is no doubt that the Saudi-Zionist normalization agreement is progressing significantly.” He warned a deal would “open the door for the majority of Arab and Islamic countries to follow the same path.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, Sinwar said that it was time to activate the plan for an attack that the terror group had been planning for some two years “to bring about a major move or a strategic shift in the paths and balances of the region with regard to the Palestinian cause.”

Without directly quoting the document, the Journal says Sinwar expected other Iran-backed terror and proxy groups to join the fighting.

Other documents apparently seized by the IDF and reviewed by the newspaper include one from September 2023 that recommended escalating the violence in the West Bank and Jerusalem to decrease the chances of normalization between Jerusalem and Riyadh.

The report also says that Saudi pledges to uphold the interests of Palestinians are “weak and limited steps to neutralize” Hamas and stop it working against normalization.

An internal briefing marked “secret” from August 2022, apparently written by Hamas’s military leadership, says: “It has become the duty of the movement to reposition itself to… preserve the survival of the Palestinian cause in the face of the broad wave of normalization by Arab countries, which aims primarily to liquidate the Palestinian cause.”

The documents also apparently include an October 2022 advertisement for a vacancy for a position for an individual to lead diplomatic efforts to derail the normalization.

Last year, German tabloid Bild published content from an ostensible document apparently found by the IDF in Gaza. That report on the document is a key element of a leaked intel scandal at the Prime Minister’s Office.

The document reported on by Bild was allegedly unlawfully removed from the IDF’s military intelligence database by a reservist — a noncommissioned officer (NCO) — who gave it to Eli Feldstein, an aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who saw to it that it was transferred to Bild, though he was aware that it was obtained illicitly and that the military censorship had barred the information from publication.

The German current affairs show “Panorama” said yesterday it had acquired the full, highly classified document reported by Bild in September, claiming that the publication seriously distorted the file.

While Bild presented the document as evidence that Hamas was not interested in reaching a serious ceasefire-hostage deal with Israel, “Panorama” said the full document showed Hamas was ready to be flexible in arrangements and sought a truce for 84 days with a pathway to ending the war.

The Bild report excluded this information and presented Hamas as indifferent to whether the ongoing war ended quickly. It reported that it instead prioritized maintaining the terror group’s military capabilities, “exhausting” Israel’s military and political apparatuses, and increasing international pressure on Israel.