Documents obtained by the IDF during ground operations in the Gaza Strip continue to shed light on the thinking of Oct. 7, 2023, massacre mastermind and former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
On July 13, the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center released newly captured documents detailing Sinwar’s plans for Hamas terror squads to seize 25 junctions, more than 220 Israeli villages, towns, cities and military facilities using a force of some 10,000 operatives. The document instructed terrorists to “expel the settlers,” particularly women and children, kidnap men between the ages of 17 and 50, and included Sinwar’s assessment that Israel could respond by using “a nuclear bomb” against Gaza.
The documents build on additional Hamas materials published by the center in March 2025, which showed that Hamas viewed the Oct. 7 assault as the opening phase of a multi-dimensional war aimed at dismantling the State of Israel.
Documenting atrocities
Dr. Hayim Iserovich, deputy director and head of research at the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center and co-author of the latest report, told JNS in recent days:
“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.”
The filming of the massacres was intended “both to instill terror in Israelis with the goal of amplifying the impact of the attack, and to awaken the other arenas,” Iserovich said.
“We do not know which of the documents was written first, and we also do not know if Sinwar shared the directives he formulated with other senior Hamas officials or if he composed this as his own collection of ideas,” Iserovich said.
“However, the very appearance of the directive to document 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 added.
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.
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 Oct. 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.
