Yahya Sinwar, the architect behind the October 7 massacres, had planned to capture more than 220 Israeli villages, towns, cities and military facilities, using a force of 10,000 terrorists, according to newly released documents.
The papers, which have been released by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre, also reveal that Sinwar had planned for Hamas to take control of 25 junctions and kidnap men between the ages of 17 and 50. It also instructed terrorists to “expel the settlers”, particularly women and children.
The documents show that Sinwar believed Israel could respond by using “a nuclear bomb” against Gaza.
They build on previously discovered sources, which revealed that Hamas viewed October 7 as the opening phase of a multidimensional war which aimed to dismantle the state of Israel.
Dr Hayim Iserovich, deputy director and head of research at the Meir Amit Intelligence and Information Centre and co-author of the latest report, told JNS: “The interesting thing is that in another captured document that Sinwar wrote on the same day, and which we published in October 2025, he speaks explicitly about documenting atrocities against civilians and soldiers inside Israel.”
He said the filming of the massacre – much of which was captured on terrorists’ GoPros – was intended “both to instil terror in Israelis, with the goal of amplifying the impact of the attack, and to awaken other arenas.”
Iserovich said they didn’t know which document was written first, whether Sinwar had shared the directives he had formulated with other senior Hamas officials or if he had composed these as his own ideas.
“However, the very appearance of the directive to documents atrocities in the parallel document, even if it does not appear in the new document, indicates that the idea already existed at the base of the plan, at least in the feverish mind of the architect of the massacre,” he said.
According to the report, the captured documents reveal close attention to logistical and tactical details, from infiltration routes across the border fence to procedures for taking hostages back into Gaza.
The plan relied on a prolonged deception campaign designed to lull Israeli political and military leaders into a false sense of security while Hamas steadily expanded its military capabilities underground, said the report.
Once complete surprise had been achieved, the goal was to overwhelm the IDF’s defensive lines before reinforcements could arrive, allowing Nukhba terrorists to penetrate deep into Israeli civilian communities, according to the documents.
Propaganda strategy
“The issue of the battle over the cognitive arena in the Palestinian arena is stressed in the captured document, with an instruction to present the attack as a ‘human’ event designed to apply the ‘right of return’ narrative of the Palestinians, under the banner of ‘returning to our homes,’” the report stated.
According to IDF assessments, the first wave of the Hamas assault, which began at 6:29 a.m. on October 7, included 1,175 terrorists. A second wave added 600 terrorists, while a third wave included 1,325 additional Hamas terrorists and 580 operatives from Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other groups.
The report said 27 terrorist cells spearheaded the initial breach of the border barrier, creating 114 breach points and using 59 infiltration routes into Israel.
“Unlike the instructions to expel the women and children and kidnap men aged 17 to 50, the terrorists implemented the instructions in the first document through acts of massacre that were documented in real time, and the kidnapping of 251 soldiers and civilians, including small children, women, and the elderly,” the report concluded.
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