(Jerusalem) An unthinkable “level of detail and preparation” which surprised Israeli military analysts: this is what reveals documents and data recovered from the Palestinian fighters who carried out the murderous attack on Israel on October 7 and exposed for the press Monday.
Mobile phones, laptops, GPS, GoPro cameras, walkie-talkies, maps, documents, booklets… “show years of preparation to attack kibbutzim and military bases. It’s a battle plan,” explains an Israeli intelligence officer.
On October 7, hundreds of fighters from the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas invaded southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people, according to Israel. Around 240 people were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip during this attack, according to authorities.
To delve into the numerous documents in Arabic or decipher the millions of electronic data, then sort between the incidental and the essential, Israel reactivated after October 7, a unit called Amshat (acronym for “Recovery Department). documents and technical equipment” on the enemy).
The unit, attached to Israeli military intelligence, was born in the wake of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Already at the time, a surprise attack – launched by Egypt and Syria – attributed to a fiasco of Israeli intelligence. Amshat has since been put to sleep and reactivated several times.
THE New York Times said the 1er December that Israeli military intelligence had obtained more than a year before the attack a document detailing point by point an operation similar to that carried out on October 7, but had deemed the scenario “imaginary”.
However, by analyzing the data collected after October 7, “what surprised me the most was the level of detail and preparation” of this operation, continued the officer, during a presentation with journalists, including one from the AFP.
Hostage taking manual
In computers, very detailed tactical plans were discovered, including a statement of objectives, names of the units engaged and their members, mission assigned to each (assault, support, etc.) with operational details, precise timing and list of necessary weapons.
But also a detailed hand drawing of an outpost in Nahal Oz, which Hamas will take control of. And on killed fighters, satellite photos and precise plans of kibbutz attacked.
He has no doubt that the information on the kibbutz came from the inside, “Palestinian employees or Israeli Arabs”. “For the military base [de Nahal Oz], we do not know. But it doesn’t come from an open source.”
Above all, everything shows that “part of the training focused on how to take hostages. Documents show what to do and how to deal with it,” explains a second intelligence officer.
A hostage-taking “checklist” and a “conversation guide” with the hostages were discovered on the killed fighters.
The checklist, seen by AFP, includes, among other things, “covering the eyes and tying the hands of all adult hostages (men and women)”, “searching places of detention and the hostages’ clothes”. Or even “kill those who cause problems and anyone who tries to escape”.
The “guide”, also shown to AFP, includes around fifty “important expressions in Hebrew” transcribed phonetically to address the hostages: “don’t move”, “come”, “hands in the air, move away legs”, “lie down”, “shut up”, “hurry up”, “get up”, “calm down”, “men here, women here, children here”.
” Gold nugget ”
Other documents suggest that the fighters were also instructed to kill civilians, according to the officers. “They wanted to create such a shock that it would break the morale” of the Israelis, said one of them.
More surprisingly, documents unrelated to the operation, some of which had high military value, were also found.
“Some Hamas fighters were kept in the dark and did not know what was going to happen. Many entered Israel with items unrelated to the raid. Some used cars they used daily,” taking valuable information with them, according to the second officer.
According to him, a detailed map of southern Gaza was thus found, identifying Hamas military installations. Israel has been carrying out intense bombings in the Gaza Strip since October 7, accompanied since October 27 by a ground offensive, operations which have left nearly 16,000 people dead, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
Amshat – who did not want to reveal their origin – said he also obtained images of tunnels in Gaza: shown to journalists, we see impressive corridors, reinforced with concrete and metal, wide and high enough for a vehicle.
“Very deep” tunnels, “the whole of Gaza is an interlacing of tunnels” and “I would not be surprised if there were more than 500 km”, explains the first officer. “Imagine how many hostages we can put inside and then move them.”
In this mass of information obtained, “there are things that we knew, others that are new,” he explains. “They deliver kilos of it to us and we must find a gold nugget there.”