Report: Hamas mobilized 2,000 men in May 2023 to drill attack, noted lack of IDF response
Channel 12 reports that months before Oct 7, terror group conducted mass exercise that flew under Israel’s radar, giving group confidence in ability to strike Jewish state
In a May 2023 exercise, the Hamas terror group in Gaza mobilized some 2,000 fighters from its elite Nukhba force to simulate a surprise attack on Israel, some five months before it went on to launch its October 7, 2023, onslaught, Channel 12 reported Monday, citing the findings of a military probe.
According to the report, fighters were scrambled to various designated gathering points, mostly in mosques, to simulate preparations for an invasion of Israeli communities across the Gaza border.
The network said the drill became known to Israel only many months later through documents seized in Gaza during the subsequent war and through interrogations of captured Nukhba fighters.
It was one of the many signals that Israeli intelligence either missed or ignored that the terror group was planning to invade the country.
Following the exercise, a narrow panel of Hamas’s highest military council met to assess the drill, the report said. Among those who participated in the meeting — documents from which were found by Israeli troops in a Hamas bunker during the war — were Muhammad Deif, then commander of the group’s military wing, and Yahya Sinwar, then its Gaza chief.
The panel reportedly determined that the exercise was a resounding success, having flown under the radar of Israeli intelligence.
According to Channel 12, several officials from the security establishment confirmed the details of the report. A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces declined to comment.
Thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded Israel from Gaza on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages, amid acts of brutality and sexual assault, triggering the ongoing war.
Multiple media investigations in the 14 months since the attack have noted intelligence officers’ awareness of some Hamas exercises simulating an invasion, which led to warnings that were ignored by intelligence higher-ups, who believed the terror group was grandstanding, and uninterested in conflict.
A dossier compiled by the IDF’s Military Intelligence’s Unit 8200 less than three weeks before October 7 warned that Hamas was training for a large-scale invasion of Israel, during which hostages would be taken en masse.
In addition, an email sent to intelligence officials in the IDF’s Gaza Division just days before the attack reportedly warned that an invasion was imminent, citing Hamas exercises in the Strip.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far refused to allow for a state commission of inquiry into the failures leading up to the Hamas attack, despite calls to do so from lawmakers across the political spectrum, as well as the president and the attorney general.
Netanyahu has argued such investigations should wait for the end of the war, while reportedly seeking a lower-level committee with less robust investigative powers. Critics say Netanyahu fears he could face blame for the failures that enabled the attack.
