Before the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Hamas leaders had devised plans for a “much more devastating” wave of assaults, which possibly included an attack akin to 9/11 on a high-rise in Tel Aviv, according to a report by The Washington Post.

The report detailed that the strategy encompassed various means of attack, such as utilizing trains, boats, and even horse-drawn chariots. They also envisioned coordinated strikes by affiliated terrorist groups to hit Israel simultaneously from its northern, southern, and eastern borders.

The information is drawn from 59 pages of letters and plans written in Arabic, which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) seized after initiating their ground invasion into Gaza on October 27, 2023. The report noted that these documents represent only a “small portion” of what the IDF has captured during the operation.

In their planning, Hamas leadership sought financial backing amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars from Iran and requested training for an additional 12,000 fighters. The documents that surfaced are just a fragment of what Israel’s forces have uncovered so far.

It remains uncertain whether Iran was fully aware of these intentions or how it responded to Hamas’s requests, though the IDF suspects that Hamas attempted to pull Iran into a direct conflict with Israel—a scenario Iran has so far avoided.

Among the seized documents are official letters dating back to 2021 from Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza. In these communications, Sinwar appeals to Iran for significant military and economic assistance, stating that with Iran’s aid, Hamas could destroy Israel within two years.

{Matzav.com Israel}