During an interview on Russian TV, a senior Hamas official admitted that the devastating attacks carried out against Israel over the weekend had been planned out for at least two years.
According to Fox News, translations of the interview on Russia Today (RT) on October 8th featuring Hamas official Ali Baraka revealed that the attacks were planned under the guise of governing the Gaza Strip.
“In the past couple of years, Hamas has adopted a ‘rational’ approach,” said Baraka. “It did not go into any war and did not join the Islamic Jihad in its recent battle.”
“But all this was part of Hamas’s strategy in preparing for this attack,” the interviewer asked, to which Baraka said “of course. We made them think that Hamas was busy with governing Gaza, and that it wanted to focus on the 2.5 million Palestinians, and has abandoned the resistance altogether.”
The translation was done by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a nonprofit group which was co-founded by a former intelligence officer with the Israeli military, and an Israeli-American political scientist.
“All the while, under the table, Hamas was preparing for this big attack,” Baraka continued. “The rockets of the resistance cover all of Palestine. Where would [Netanyahu] take [the Israelis who were attacked]? To Tel Aviv? We bombed Tel Aviv on the very first day of the attack. Does he want to take them to the Galilee? The northern front – with Lebanon – has opened today. The Galilee is no longer safe for the Zionist enemy. We can bomb the Galilee from inside occupied Palestine.”
Baraka’s explanations may provide a reason as to why Israeli and Western intelligence appeared to completely miss any possible warning signs of the attack beforehand, in what has widely been described as a significant intelligence failure. In response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has formed a unity government and declared war on Hamas, retaliating with massive airstrikes against Gaza while preparing for an all-out ground invasion.
The initial attacks against Israel resulted in over 1,200 dead Israelis, as well as at least 25 Americans. The subsequent counter-attacks against Gaza have allegedly killed 1,400 Palestinians, hundreds of whom were members of Hamas. In addition to the casualties, Hamas terrorists have taken over 150 hostages.