Israel knew of Hamas attack plan more than a year ago: Report

Israel knew about a Hamas plan to strike the nation more than a year before the militant group launched its deadly surprise attack Oct. 7, The New York Times reported Thursday.

According to the Times, Israeli military and intelligence officials saw the plan as ambitious and thought it would be too hard for Hamas to pull off.

The Times said a document, code-named “Jericho Wall” by Israeli authorities, laid out an incursion like the one that sparked the current war between Israel and Hamas but did not point to a date for the attack. However, it did reportedly outline an assault that had an aim to overpower fortifications around Gaza, among other actions. 

Hamas’s assault last month followed the plan quite closely to the blueprint, which was distributed on a large scale amongst Israeli military and intelligence leaders, the Times noted.

Israel’s military and the office in charge of counterterrorism in Gaza declined to comment to the newspaper on its reporting.

Israel restarted combat operations Friday after a weeklong truce in Gaza, with fighter jets hitting the territory minutes after the truce expired.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the conflict resumed again because Hamas had violated the temporary truce and didn’t meet “its obligation to release all of the women hostages today and has launched rockets at Israeli citizens.”

Hamas’s attack on Israel last month resulted in the deaths of 1,200 Israelis, according to officials. Retaliatory Israeli combat operations have resulted in the deaths of over 13,300 Palestinians, with about two-thirds of them being women and children, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry has said.