Handwritten Hamas memo exposes scripted nature of Oct. 7 rampage

Israel’s Foreign Ministry posted to X on Sunday a handwritten document penned by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar revealing the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre “wasn’t chaos, but choreography.”

“Terrorists were ordered to film the slaughter of civilians, soldiers and families—not for documentation, but as a psychological weapon to terrorize Israelis and inspire extremists,” the MFA said.

“This wasn’t a ‘spontaneous uprising.’ It was a scripted campaign for the destruction of Israel—planned, rehearsed and executed,” the MFA added.

On Oct. 11, The New York Times published further details about the memo, which was found by a special unit of the Israel Defense Forces in May 2025.

The unit found the image of the six-page memo on a computer in an underground complex used by Mohammed Sinwar, the brother of Yahya Sinwar, who briefly led Hamas after his brother’s death before himself being killed in Oct. 2024.

The memo calls for Hamas terrorists to target soldiers and civilian communities—as well as to broadcast the violent acts to spread fear among Israelis and destabilize the country, the Times reported.

The memo orders fighters to enter residential neighborhoods and set them on fire “with gasoline or diesel from a tanker.”

“Two or three operations, in which an entire neighborhood, kibbutz, or something similar will be burned, must be prepared,” the memo said.

Hamas commanders issued orders in line with the memo on Oct. 7, according to hours of intercepted communications between commanders and subordinates during the assault, the Times reported.

“Start setting homes on fire,” said battalion commander Abu Muhammed to his men just before 10 a.m. on Oct. 7.

“Burn, burn,” he said, according to the communications intercepted by Unit 8200, Israel’s signal intelligence unit. “I want the whole kibbutz to be in flames.”

“Set fire to anything,” a commander named Abu al-Abed said around the same time.

The memo laid out a surprise assault plan—instructing bulldozers to breach the fence separating Gaza from Israel and calling for successive waves of attackers.

It sought maximum shock value, urging fighters to “stomp on the heads of soldiers.” It also ordered “opening fire on soldiers at point-blank range, slaughtering some of them with knives, blowing up tanks.”

Intercepted commands from Oct. 7 mirrored those orders—“Slit their throats,” a northern Gaza battalion commander told his team, according to the Times, which reviewed the intercepts.

When a terrorist asked whether to kill people on the road, a battalion commander, Abu Muath, said: “Kill everyone on the road. Kill everyone you encounter.”

“Now we are at the beginning of the kibbutz,” one terrorist reported. “We have wiped out those in it. There are settlers whom we killed.”

“Guys, take a lot of hostages,” Abu Muath added. “Take a lot of hostages.”

The memo said the actions should be broadcast to the Arab world to spur people to take part in the fight. It would lead the Arabs to “respond positively to calls for them to join the revolution.”

“It needs to be affirmed to the unit commanders to undertake these actions intentionally, film them and broadcast images of them as fast as possible,” the memo said.

In the Oct. 7 intercepts, a Hamas commander urges: “Document the scenes of horror, now, and broadcast them on TV channels to the whole world... Slaughter them. End the children of Israel.”

Another said, “It is essential that you bring the drone in so it films for the entire Islamic world.”

“After today, no one can hold back his rifle, bullet, pistol, knife, car, or Molotov cocktail,” senior Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri announced in a recorded message broadcast on Al Jazeera on Oct 7, the Times reported.

Al-Arouri was eliminated by Israel on Jan. 2, 2024 in Lebanon.