Hamas planned to involve other countries in the conflict with Israel – Kommersant

Militants of the Palestinian Hamas movement were planning another wave of attacks on Israeli territory to provoke a large-scale military conflict in the Middle East. The newspaper reported this The Washington Post citing intelligence sources in four Western and Middle Eastern countries.

The publication’s sources claim that Hamas hoped that another attack would “cause a powerful response from Israel,” which would provoke a large-scale conflict with the participation of Arab countries in the Middle East. To do this, according to the newspaper’s interlocutors, the militants had enough food, ammunition and equipment to stay in Israel for several days.

If the attacks were successful, they were supposed to move deeper into Israel and strike major cities. One Hamas unit had intelligence and maps indicating it intended to continue its offensive to the West Bank border, according to two senior Middle Eastern intelligence officials and one former U.S. official.

Senior Hamas official Ali Barake said the movement expected more resistance from Israel during the October 7 attack. According to him, even Hamas itself was shocked by the scale of the operation.

As Reuters reported, citing a source close to Hamas, the group was able to take the Israeli army by surprise through extensive preparation and a “campaign of deception.” According to the agency, Hamas sought to convince the Israeli leadership that economic stability for the Gaza Strip was more important than the conquest of Israeli territories.

During the Hamas attack on Israel, 1,400 people were killed in just a few days. More than 100 people were taken hostage. Israel then attacked the Gaza Strip and launched a ground operation in the enclave. As a result of Israeli retaliatory attacks in the Gaza Strip, according to the latest data, 11 thousand people were killed.

About the situation in the region – in the Kommersant article “Battles around hospitals.”

Anastasia Larina