Hamas Attack On Oct. 7: Aimed At Disrupting Talks Between Israel And Saudi Arabia
- 18.05.2025, 14:25
The Israeli military discovered a secret document in a tunnel under Gaza.
Minutes of a Hamas leadership meeting revealed that the October 7, 2023 attack was meant to derail normalization talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Israeli military said the document was discovered in a tunnel under Gaza. It shows that on October 2, 2023, the head of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, told a closed-door meeting of the movement that it was necessary to launch an attack on Israel, planned for two years, to stop Riyadh and Jerusalem from getting closer. For Sinwar and Hamas, this was unacceptable.
The goal of the attack, Sinwar plotted, was to "achieve a major shift or strategic shift in the balance of power in the region with respect to the Palestinian cause."
He hoped to get help from other Iranian-backed forces in the so-called axis of resistance to Israel. It called it a threat that an agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia would open the way for other Arab and Islamic countries to establish relations with the Israeli state, which Hamas said would "marginalize the Palestinian cause."
After a Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, Israel launched a large-scale military campaign in Gaza. According to the local Health Ministry, this resulted in the deaths of more than 60,000 people.
Other documents found in Gaza also indicate Hamas leadership concerns about the progress of U.S.-mediated talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia. In September 2023, according to one memo, the movement planned to escalate the conflict in the West Bank and Jerusalem to complicate the diplomatic rapprochement.
According to intelligence reports, Iran provided Hamas with funding, weapons and combat training, including drills conducted shortly before the attack. Although Tehran is said to have agreed to the operation, sources inside the "resistance axis" stress that Iran and Hezbollah did not want to be directly involved in a war with Israel.
On October 7, 2023, Palestinian Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel that killed more than 1,200 people. The militants then took about 250 people captive, 100 of whom are still being held. A third are believed to be already dead.