NEW YORK: Israeli officials had intelligence that Palestinian militant group Hamas was preparing a wide-ranging attack before its October 7 assault but dismissed the reports, The New York Times reported Thursday.
The newspaper said a document obtained by Israeli authorities “outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people.”
The document, which was reviewed by the newspaper, did not specify when the attack might happen, but provided a blueprint that Hamas appears to have followed: an initial rocket barrage, efforts to knock out surveillance, and waves of gunmen crossing into Israel by land and air.
The Times said the document, which included sensitive security information about Israeli military capacity and locations, circulated widely among the country’s military and intelligence leaders, though it was not clear if it was reviewed by senior politicians.
But a military assessment last year determined it was too soon to say the plan had been approved by Hamas, and when an analyst with the country’s signals intelligence warned the group had carried out a training exercise in line with the plan, she was dismissed.
She warned it was a “plan designed to start a war,” the newspaper said, but a colonel reviewing her assessment suggested: “let’s wait patiently.”
The warnings did not suggest that Hamas was likely to carry out the plan imminently, and the intelligence community continued to believe that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was not pursuing war with Israel, the Times said, likening the intelligence failure to those in the United States before the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The Hamas attack killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw around 240 people taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.
Israel’s retaliatory ground and air offensive in Gaza has killed more than 15,000 people, also mostly civilians, according to Hamas authorities.
Israel dismissed advance warning of Hamas attack — NYT
https://arab.news/bfg6v
Israel dismissed advance warning of Hamas attack — NYT
- The warnings did not suggest that Hamas was likely to carry out the plan imminently
- A military assessment last year determined it was too soon to say the plan had been approved by Hamas
Sudan paramilitary drone strike on school kills two children: medical source
- Since it began, the war has killed tens of thousands and left around 11 million people displaced
KHARTOUM: A drone strike blamed on Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces killed two children and injured 12 others Wednesday in the southern city of El-Rahad, a medical source told AFP.
El-Rahad lies in Sudan’s Kordofan region, currently the fiercest battlefield in the war raging between the RSF and the regular army since April 2023.
“I saw a dozen students injured,” Ahmed Moussa, an eyewitness to the attack, told AFP, adding that the drone had struck a traditional Qur'anic school.
El-Rahad, in North Kordofan state, was retaken by the army last February, as part of a rapid offensive that saw it push west to break a long-running siege on state capital El-Obeid.
The RSF has been trying to re-encircle El-Obeid since, including by launching successive drone strikes on the main highway out of the city, which connects the western region of Darfur with the capital Khartoum.
Since it began, the war has killed tens of thousands and left around 11 million people displaced, creating the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.
It has also effectively split the country in two, with the army holding the north, center and east while the RSF and its allies control the west and parts of the south.
