More than a year before the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel that left around 1,200 people dead and kick-started the latest war between the nation and the militant group, Israel had a document detailing pretty much to the letter how Hamas would carry out the massacre. But as the New York Times reports, Israeli officials didn't take seriously the threat spelled out in the "Jericho Wall" blueprint, which they considered too "aspirational" and challenging for Hamas to actually carry out. The 40-page plan, which the Times notes Hamas followed "with shocking precision," didn't suggest a date for the attack, but instead laid out all the minutiae of the invasive operation in early October, from the rockets used to start the assault, to the gunmen that flocked into Israel on motorbikes and paragliders, as well as on foot, to taking hostages once they arrived.
The document begins with a quote from the Koran: "Surprise them through the gate. If you do, you will certainly prevail." It's not clear what, if anything, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knew about the plan, which reportedly made the rounds among Israeli military and intelligence and also detailed sensitive Israeli military information. Haaretz, which has its own report on the Hamas plan, notes that aides and allies of Netanyahu have pointed the finger at senior Israeli security officials for the attack, the deadliest day in Israel's history.
The Jericho Wall document "lays bare a yearslong cascade of missteps," per the Times, which notes that "underpinning all these failures was a single, fatally inaccurate belief that Hamas lacked the capability to attack and would not dare to do so." In July, an Israeli intelligence analyst even warned that Hamas had been observed carrying out a training drill that seemed to adhere a little too closely to the Jericho Wall document. An Israeli colonel in the Gaza unit brushed off the analyst's concerns, which led to a pointed response from her.
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"I utterly refute that the scenario is imaginary," she wrote in emails seen by the Times. "It is a plan designed to start a war. It's not just a raid on a village." An Israeli defense official tells Haaretz that military personnel who saw the Jericho Wall document after the Oct. 7 attack were filled with "sorrow and tears" at its accuracy. "The Israeli intelligence failure on Oct. 7 is sounding more and more like our 9/11," retired CIA official Ted Singer tells the Times. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that Israeli intelligence agents have their own plan brewing: to take out Hamas leaders not just in Gaza, but around the world. More here on the Jericho Wall document. (More Israel-Hamas war stories.)
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