Hamas October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar authored a handwritten document on August 24, 2022, detailing his belief that Israel might respond to an invasion with nuclear weapons. Disclosed by the Amit Terrorism and Intelligence Research Institute, the record confirms Sinwar anticipated a powerful Israeli counteroffensive and potential nuclear use, yet he remained committed to the attack as a “battle of life or death.”
Strategic Deception and the Nuclear Scenario
The document is part of a series of captured materials revealed by the Amit Institute and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). While prior records addressed Hamas’s operational planning, this specific text provides the most detailed insight into Sinwar’s assessment of Israel’s nuclear capabilities. In the document, Sinwar wrote, “The enemy will not hesitate to use all the means and weapons at its disposal, not only through attack but also by other means. It may even use a nuclear bomb.”
Despite this assessment, the Amit Institute noted that Sinwar did not abandon his vision, even if the result was the destruction of the Gaza Strip. He predicted that Israel would initially be “surprised by the attack and descend into chaos.” To account for this, he instructed that a “popular operation” be organized to symbolically reoccupy villages.
Evolution of the Invasion Plan
The newly surfaced document outlines an ambitious scope for the attack, proposing an invasion force of up to 10,000 Hamas fighters intended to target more than 200 Israeli communities and IDF outposts. This stands in contrast to the actual October 7, 2023, operation.
The final execution involved a smaller force: approximately 2,000 Hamas terrorists in the first wave, a similar number in the second wave, and an additional 1,600 untrained Gazans in a third wave, totaling about 5,600 participants. The Amit Institute’s analysis of six separate documents indicates a multi-year effort between 2022 and 2023 to systematically deceive Israel into complacency. This includes a September 13, 2022, document titled “Building a Strategic Deception Plan Which Will Be the Basis for a Surprise Attack by Hamas on Israel.”
Operational Implications and Future Analysis
Sinwar’s planning documents reveal a preoccupation with the timing of the invasion. In an overlapping document, he estimated the window of opportunity to achieve the desired surprise effect was between six and ten hours. During this timeframe, he emphasized the necessity of impeding Israel’s ability to launch a counteroffensive.
As these documents continue to be processed and released, they may provide further clarity on how Hamas reconciled its tactical deception with the anticipation of a high-intensity Israeli response. Analysts may look to these records to better understand how the organization calculated the risks to the Gaza Strip against its strategic objectives. The ongoing disclosure of these captured files is likely to offer additional context regarding the command structure and internal deliberations that preceded the invasion.
Worth a look
