(StraightNews.org) – Israel was aware of Hamas’s plans to launch a terror attack inside the Jewish state but took no action, according to the New York Times. The left-wing paper reported that senior Israeli officials obtained a 40-page report detailing the terrorist group’s plans more than a year before the attack on October 7. It is unclear who provided the report to Israel, but reports say it was written in Arabic and, therefore, likely came from inside Hamas.
Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer said he was unaware of such prior intelligence. “All of these questions, we’re going to have to get to the bottom of it after the war,” he said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously conceded that there had been intelligence failures but likewise said these will be investigated when the war is over.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby added that US services had no knowledge of the document and said, “Our intelligence community is looking into that.”
The report, codenamed “Jericho Wall,” contained details of a hypothetical attack on Israel’s southern border and noted the planned use of drones and rockets to disable security systems at the border wall. It said Hamas would fire rockets into the Jewish state in such numbers that it could override the Iron Dome missile defense system. It also stated that Hamas would take hostages back to the Gaza Strip to use as bargaining chips in the subsequent war.
Additionally, a month before the attack on October 7, Hamas published a video showing its members bursting through a replica border on pickup trucks and shooting human-silhouetted paper targets. Female border-spotters also reported they could see Hamas preparing for the attack, but were dismissed. The women said they could see the build-up of drones and preparatory attempts to knock out border cameras for months before the assault.
US officials will work with Israel to find the cause of the “complete breakdown” in communication and intelligence.
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