How Hamas Tricked Israelis Into Letting Their Guard Down

The Washington Post explained how the October 7 Hamas attack was able to take place with such unimpeded ferocity. They were lulled into it with a years-long Hamas campaign to make Israelis think they swore off terror and were becoming more moderate. They made them think they wanted to rebuild the Gaza Strip.

To promote the false image of moderation, Hamas ceased clashes after 2021. They avoided jumping in when their ally, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad or PIJ fired rockets or engaged militarily.

Allegedly, some reports suggest that Hamas officials passed PIJ intelligence to Israelis. It was all a façade.

They even used radio channels to promote peace while communicating in tunnels on handheld radios and land-wire networks.

Israelis gave tens of thousands of Gazans work permits, and they used their time in Israel to map out villages, every home, and the names of everyone in each home. In the end, they raided 22 villages and moved 15 miles inland from the Gaza Strip with the intention of moving further into the interior. The ultimate goal was always to inflame a broader war in the region. They didn’t just want to kidnap and kill Israelis.

Washington Post:

After breaching the Israeli border in some 30 places, Hamas staged a mass slaughter of soldiers and civilians in at least 22 Israeli villages, towns, and military outposts and then drew Israeli defenders into gun battles that continued for more than a day.

They knew there would be a severe retaliation into Gaza, but felt it was worth it:

“Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it,” Ghazi Hamad, a member of the Hamas politburo, told Beirut’s LCBI television in an interview aired on Oct. 24. “We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.”

Hamas was willing to accept such sacrifices as the price for kick-starting a new wave of violent Palestinian resistance in the region and scuttling efforts at normalizing relations between Israel and Arab states…

Yehiya Sinwar, the plan’s architect, is a self-described student of Israeli political culture who waited until the country was distracted by controversial judicial reform measures and increased violence in the West Bank before the carefully coordinated attack was executed.

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