Hamas deliberately deceived Israel for years about its intentions, lulling its vigilance - Reuters
The attack was planned in the utmost secrecy, and many in the militant leadership did not know about it
The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, before launching its attack on Israel on October 7, carefully planned and executed a campaign to deceive Israeli authorities about its true intentions, which helped catch Israel off guard.
Source. Reuters writes about this with reference to sources close to Hamas.
Saturday's attack, the worst failure in Israel's defense since the 1973 Arab war, came after two years of Hamas' subterfuge, which included concealing its military plans and convincing Israel that it did not want a war.
At that time, Islamic Jihad and Lebanese Hezbollah were diverting the attention of Israeli intelligence services. This explains why Saturday's attack took the Israeli army and special operations forces by surprise, Reuters reports.
After the Israeli-Palestinian crisis of 2021, Hamas has consistently imitated unpreparedness for war and satisfaction with the system of work permits in Israel for the Arab population.
At the same time, the militants built a replica of an Israeli settlement and trained sabotage groups there.
"They were able to convince us that they were only interested in money," a source in Israel's intelligence services told the agency.
The authenticity of the deception was facilitated by the real dissatisfaction with the "peaceful" policy of Hamas by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his accusations of corruption against the Gaza leadership.
The attack was planned in the utmost secrecy, and many in the militant leadership did not know about it.
The neutralization of the Israeli army's communications center in southern Gaza to disrupt its management, the taking of hostages at a music festival and their transportation to the militant territory were all part of the plan.
The attention of the intelligence services (and their personnel) was diverted from the Gaza Strip by Arab attacks in the West Bank.
In addition, according to The Wall Street Journal, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was involved in planning the attack.
Read more about the new round of military conflict in Mind's article "Yom Kippur War 2: Israel moves to open conflict with Palestine. How will this affect the Middle East region, the world and Ukraine in particular?"
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