- The Washington Times - Thursday, December 21, 2023

Hamas terrorists amassed detailed information about Israeli communities and military posts near the Gaza Strip well before they launched their Oct. 7 rampage that killed more than 1,200 people and triggered a war now in its third month.

Hamas mapped the locations of border settlements and Israeli Defense Forces positions, then trained its fighters on the weak points of all the sites, The Jerusalem Post reported Thursday.

“They infiltrated Israel, knowing exactly which areas were under less surveillance, where there are observation posts (and) where the dining rooms and sleeping quarters are located,” the newspaper said, citing an Israeli military source. “Terrorists knew about the security vulnerabilities of an IDF base located kilometers away from the border.”

Other Hamas militants brought a video of a server room at an Israeli intelligence base they intended to attack. “Specific computers to be taken from the server room were marked in the video,” the newspaper reported.

Israeli officials said Iran provided the Hamas militants with instructions about which computers they should take during the attack.

“The level of their awareness about the Intelligence Corps base in the western Negev slipped us. They knew exactly what they wanted to achieve,” an IDF source told The Jerusalem Post. “It’s amazing to understand the level of their intent before the war.”

Hamas fighters also were given detailed instructions on tapping into the communications lines between IDF units located near the Gaza Strip, which would have allowed them to eavesdrop on encrypted systems, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Israeli government officials have publicly acknowledged the cascading series of intelligence failures that allowed Hamas to overwhelm their defenses during the Oct. 7 attack. They promised a wide-ranging inquiry once the war is completed, but according to The Jerusalem Post, a unit of Israel’s Intelligence Division has already launched an investigation.

“The field of defense and information security in the IDF will undergo a ‘fundamental change’ in the coming year, which will require the army to rethink its approach and fundamentally change its way of handling this issue,” the newspaper reported.

• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.

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