Hamas documents reveal October 7 terrorists had ‘manual’ for hostage-taking in ‘cognitive warfare’ campaign

"While hostage-taking served immediate military objectives - such as slowing Israel’s military response and extracting political concessions - it also functioned as a powerful instrument of cognitive warfare, used to stall Israeli decision-makers, fracture Israeli society, and reshape global perception."

In its recommendations, the report suggested a number of counter-measures to help Israel avoid similar hostage crises in future.

These were:

1. Reframe hostage-taking as psychological warfare: Recognise mass hostage-taking as a deliberate form of psychological and cognitive warfare, not just a humanitarian tragedy. National security and foreign policy frameworks must reflect this reality and treat perpetrators as strategically illegitimate.

2. Prepare resilient societies: Develop national and international doctrines that include scenario planning, psychological preparedness, and public education for hostage crises – just as is done for terrorism or cyber threats. Establish disciplined crisis messaging protocols: Rather than rely on rigid scripts, governments should train senior officials and spokespeople in strategic crisis communication –emphasising psychological awareness, coordination, and consistency.

3. Strengthen global narrative capabilities: Create multilingual, proactive media units to shape the international conversation and counter adversarial influence campaigns. Leverage embassies, diaspora communities, and digital diplomacy to assert clarity on the Israeli perspective and intentional nature of cognitive warfare.

4. Integrate the Israeli case into international learning: Treat the October 7 crisis as a case study in modern psychological warfare. Governments, international institutions, and civil society actors should incorporate Israel’s experience into training, doctrine, and contingency planning.

5. Avoid reinforcing the hostage incentive structure: Acknowledge that past concessions regarding steeply asymmetric prisoner exchanges, such as the Jibril and Shalit deals, established a dangerous precedent. Future policy must set clear strategic limits to disincentivise mass abductions as a viable tactic.

And it also discussed how the plight of hostage families, many of whom have become vocal political campaigners in Israel, has been “weaponised” by Hamas.

"After October 7, the families of the hostages immediately became public figures, thrust into the media spotlight as advocates for their family members. As time passed, the hostage families grew increasingly sceptical that recovering the hostages was the foremost priority of the Israeli government,” it said.

"Hamas weaponised their grief and vulnerability, sometimes sending them direct messages through media broadcasts or more discreet channels.

"These were designed to terrorise loved ones into applying pressure on the Israeli government or face threats that their relatives would be harmed.”

Finally, the report concluded: "The hostages taken on October 7 are not just prisoners in Gaza, they are captives in the global imagination.

"Hamas has deployed its hostage-taking strategy with precision not only to shield its fighters but to haunt Israeli society, weaken its leadership, and dominate international perception.

"As Israel seeks to win the war, this means freeing more than hostages; it means liberating the national psyche from the traps that Hamas so expertly laid."