Captured intelligence details Hamas’s two-year effort to coordinate a surprise assault, exposing major security gaps in Israeli early warning systems
(April 27, 2025 / JNS) Newly uncovered documents captured in Gaza during the ongoing war reveal extensive coordination between Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah and Qatar in the years leading up to the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, shattering the widely held perception that Hamas planned the assault alone.
Intelligence obtained from letters, conversations and meetings in Beirut and Tehran shows that Yahya Sinwar, Hamas leader in Gaza, and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas political chief based in Qatar, maintained continuous contact with Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and senior commanders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to a detailed report by Israel’s Channel 12 News.
Already in 2021, following the IDF’s “Operation Guardian of the Walls,” Sinwar began formulating an attack plan, with Iranian and Hezbollah backing, the documents show. Hamas requested $500 million from Tehran over two years to fund its war preparations.