The decision by the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip to launch the Oct. 7, 2023, invasion and massacre in southern Israel was driven by a convergence of immediate geopolitical anxieties about Saudi-Israeli normalization and long-standing religious fundamentalist ideology, researchers who analyzed captured Hamas documents told JNS in recent days.
While the Gazan terror organization continuously prepared for a final war of annihilation against Israel, the rapid progression of diplomatic negotiations between Jerusalem and Riyadh prompted the Hamas military wing to accelerate its timetable, according to the researchers.
The resulting assault was designed to shatter the regional integration of the Jewish state while simultaneously triggering a multi-front conflict across the Middle East, they found.
According to a June 15, 2026, report published by Avishai Karo, a senior researcher and Middle East scholar at the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, internal Hamas documents recovered by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza demonstrate that the group’s leadership viewed the impending Saudi normalization as a massive threat to their strategic objectives.
“Hamas regarded the process of normalization as a fatal blow to the Palestinian cause which would weaken the movement and diminish its role in the ‘resistance axis,’” Karo wrote in his report. Hamas first attempted to thwart the normalization process by igniting “the situation on the ground and using the narrative of a ‘threat to al-Aqsa’ as an accelerant,” the report states.
However, as time passed, Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza, concluded that the only alternative was to undertake an unconventional course of action to halt the normalization process, which he believed was approaching maturation.
“Hamas closely followed the progress of the normalization process between Saudi Arabia and Israel from the exploratory phase,” Karo told JNS.
He outlined the severe strategic implications the organization attached to a peace treaty between Jerusalem and Riyadh.
“It saw the realization of normalization as nothing less than a strategic threat for the entire Palestinian issue, and for Hamas’s role as part of the ‘resistance axis’ in particular,” Karo explained.
“The fact that Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Sunni Arab world, was prepared to normalize relations with Israel was considered from Hamas’s perspective as a crushing blow,” he stated. “This would lead to what it termed a regional collapse, in light of the fact that additional countries would follow in Saudi Arabia’s footsteps, and the axis of resistance would be dramatically weakened.”
Before resorting to a full-scale invasion, the organization attempted to derail the diplomatic track through localized escalations, Karo noted. He assessed that the terror group sought to utilize religious flash points to ignite violence in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, hoping to rally the masses and disrupt the diplomatic trajectory without forcing a direct, devastating confrontation with the IDF in Gaza.
“It is important to note that Hamas formulated a comprehensive plan to struggle against normalization out of a belief that it might succeed in thwarting the move, delaying or disrupting it,” Karo detailed. “Hamas even tried to thwart the normalization through a plan to ignite the territories of Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem through the ‘Al-Aqsa in Danger’ campaign.”
He explained the historical precedent that inspired this incitement strategy.
“Hamas conceived this move based on the lessons of the Second Intifada in 2002, which led to the halting of the Arab Peace Initiative,” Karo said. “The leadership emphasized in internal circles that they must act to thwart normalization, but at the same time, avoid political suicide or harming relations with Saudi Arabia.”
Yet, he said, the decision to launch the attack stemmed, among other things, from the understanding of Hamas and its leader that the normalization train with Saudi Arabia was racing toward its destination despite everything and could not be stopped.
He pointed to specific public milestones, including the 2022 opening of Saudi airspace to Israeli flights and a September 2023 media interview by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, that signaled the inevitability of an agreement to the terror leadership.
The destruction of Israel
This urgency of blocking the Saudi diplomatic breakthrough dovetailed seamlessly with the terror group’s overarching jihadist objective of destroying Israel.
According to a March 2025 report published by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, authored by Dr. Uri Rost, a lecturer at Sapir Academic College and a researcher at the Meir Amit Center, captured documents illustrate how the organization transitioned its long-standing ideological theories regarding the destruction of Israel into concrete operational plans.
Karo said there was no contradiction between the various goals.
“On the contrary, Hamas certainly holds a religious ideology seeking the destruction of Israel, but not at the cost of ‘suicide,’” he stated. “Hamas never gave up on its ambition to destroy Israel, even when it spoke of a hudna—a prolonged ceasefire. From Hamas’s perspective, it was always about timing and the fruition of capabilities and conditions,” he said, adding that Hamas also noted the internal divisions rocking Israel at the time of the attack, as well as Israel’s tendency toward containment and lack of will for a full-fledged confrontation.
Rost, who authored the paper detailing how Hamas operationalized its jihadist ideology, agreed.
“I certainly view this as two sides of the same coin,” he told JNS.
“From their perspective, Saudi normalization would establish Israel’s status in the region, so it needed to be destroyed, and of course, the supreme goal is the destruction of Israel,” Rost explained.
Examining the operational documents drafted by Sinwar, Rost revealed the scale of the strategic vision.
“There were three alternatives that he presented, three options, of which only the first, in his view, was liable to bring about the destruction of Israel, which is that everyone [in the jihadist axis] joins in,” said Rost.
He described the ultimate execution of the plan as a calculated gamble designed to force the hand of Hamas’s regional allies.
“Ultimately, he [Sinwar] went with the more minor option, in which Hamas leads, and expected that others [Hezbollah and Iran] would join,” said Rost.
The expectation of a multi-front war was explicit in the immediate aftermath of the initial breach of the border in southern Israel, according to the recovered documents. Captured correspondence reveals that on the morning of the attack, senior Hamas commanders dispatched urgent communications anticipating the immediate entry of Hezbollah into the fray, he explained.
“There is the famous letter that Sinwar, Marwan Issa [the eliminated deputy Hamas commander], and Mohammad Deif [the eliminated head of Hamas’s military wing] sent exactly at 6:30 in the morning” of Oct 7, 2023, said Rost. “The letter in which he expected that Hezbollah would join did not succeed for him, but broadly speaking we are talking about the same coin, there is no contradiction between these goals, on the contrary.”
Addressing the selection of the Oct. 7 date, Rost argued that the timing was dictated by tactical opportunity rather than a specific diplomatic deadline in Riyadh.
“Sinwar explicitly said they wanted to do it in a specific time frame, during Passover,” Rost recalled. “He spoke about Passover, and apparently, it did not work out.”
He assessed that the Jewish holiday calendar ultimately provided the necessary conditions for the assault.
“Therefore, I believe this specific timing was more of an operational opportunity, and Passover and Simchat Torah [which fell on Oct. 7, 2023], it seems to me that this determined the timing,” said Rost.
