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Report: Israeli intelligence warned of Hamas plans before October 7 attacks

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Tel-Aviv, Israel:

According to Israeli public broadcaster Kan, an Israeli intelligence report prepared weeks before the October 7 Hamas attack warned military officials about the Palestinian group’s preparations for the attack.

The Israeli military’s intelligence unit wrote the report in September, less than a month before the Hamas attack that sparked the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, Kan reported Monday.

It said the Unit 8200 intelligence document contained details of the training of elite Hamas fighters for hostage-taking and plans for raids on military positions and Israeli communities in southern Israel.

The report said the Palestinian groups planned to take hundreds of hostages, Kan said.

“The expected number of hostages is 200 to 250 people,” Kan said in the letter.

According to an AFP news agency count based on official Israeli figures, 1,194 people were killed in the unprecedented Hamas attack, most of them civilians.

In addition, Hamas took 251 people hostage, 116 of whom are still in the Gaza Strip. According to the army, 41 of them are dead.

According to the Health Ministry of the Hamas-controlled area, at least 37,347 people, also mostly civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military retaliation offensive in the Gaza Strip since October 7.

According to Kan, who cited anonymous security officials, the letter was known to intelligence officials in the Gaza Division and the military’s Southern Command.

Israeli politicians have rejected calls for a thorough investigation into intelligence failures surrounding the Hamas attack, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisting that an official inquiry must wait until after the war, now in its ninth month.

However, the Israeli military told AFP that it was “investigating the events” of October 7. The investigation was being “actively conducted” and would be made public later.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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