How Hamas hid 7 October plans in plain sight
After Al-Aqsa Flood, most ex post facto discussions about the military operation spearheaded by Hamas on 7 October 2023 have centered on the apparent intelligence failures of Israel’s security apparatus.
A number of these discussions have lamented what, in hindsight, appear to be indicators that Israeli security and intelligence apparatuses should have anticipated the operation.
These judgments, however, belie several critical facets informing the pre-7 October 2023 state of affairs. Foremost among these is Israel’s colonial hubris, which led it to believe that it had effectively contained and neutralized Hamas within Gaza.
Sinwar’s secrecy permeated even the ranks of the resistance itself. There are indications that Hamas’ political bureau, based outside Gaza, did not possess foreknowledge of the time, place or scale of the operation.
In February 2025, two Hamas officials, Mahmoud Mardawi and Jasser al-Barghouti, gave an interview to veteran Al Jazeera journalist and television presenter Ahmed Mansour. The interview provided some crucial insights into the camouflage strategy of Hamas’ armed wing, the Qassam Brigades.
Al-Barghouti highlights how Sinwar “went to the Egyptians to develop trade” and spoke with the Qataris about “expanding the economy in Gaza.” As political scientist Leila Seurat highlights in her book The Foreign Policy of Hamas, Hamas brandished a “logic of appeasement” when Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad exchanged fire in November 2019. “By staying away from confrontation,” she wrote, “Hamas obtained the opening of the Kerem Shalom crossing” – the Israeli-controlled commercial checkpoint – “the supply of fuel trucks, and an extension of the maritime territory granted to fishermen.”
Senior political leader Mousa Abu Marzouk has said that they had no prior knowledge of the plan, telling The New Yorker in October 2023 that “all of Hamas’ leaders who are not military ones received the news early Saturday morning” – on the morning of 7 October 2023 itself.
Simultaneously, Sinwar publicly dissolved the elite Nukhba commando unit of the Qassam Brigades and restructured the resistance into brigades, reinforcing the impression that Hamas’ resistance pursuits had been effectively constrained by the occupation.
But the Nukhba force reemerged with a bang on 7 October 2023, leading the charge against the Israeli military bases and settlements in the “Gaza envelope” region of southwest occupied Palestine.
