A bombshell investigation by Yedioth Ahronoth has uncovered startling new details about Israel’s security forces’ actions leading up to the deadly October 7 Hamas attacks. According to senior security sources, Israeli intelligence developed—but ultimately abandoned—plans to target and eliminate two of Hamas’ most senior leaders, Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, early in 2023. This revelation adds a new layer of scrutiny to the country’s pre-war decision-making and the intelligence failures that followed.
The investigation reveals that Israeli security forces had formulated an operational plan to strike at Hamas’ top leadership in Gaza. This plan, reportedly deemed “operationally ready,” reached the desk of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the first half of 2023. However, sources claim that Netanyahu rejected the plan based on the assessment that Hamas had been sufficiently deterred following Israel’s earlier military operations, particularly Operation “Shield and Arrow,” a major assault against the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in May 2023.
At the time, Israeli officials reportedly believed that Hamas had been sufficiently weakened and deterred by the military aggression, making such an operation unnecessary. The intelligence community’s assessment was that Hamas lacked the capacity and will to launch a large-scale attack.
The Yedioth Ahronoth report also highlights troubling intelligence failures that have now come under intense scrutiny. According to the investigation, Israel’s military intelligence unit, Aman, had consistently underestimated Hamas’ capabilities and intentions over the past decade. Despite growing evidence to the contrary, Aman reportedly maintained that Hamas was not planning any significant attacks. This fundamental misreading of Hamas’ strategy and goals is believed to have directly influenced the decision to abandon the plan to eliminate Sinwar and Deif.
The intelligence community’s apparent blindness to Hamas’ growing threat has come under fire, with analysts noting that the decision to dismiss the strike plan could have been a critical misstep in preventing the devastating attacks that unfolded on October 7.
In response to the Yedioth Ahronoth report, the Prime Minister’s Office has strongly refuted claims that a fully developed plan for the strike was ever formally presented to Netanyahu. Officials have argued that while a plan may have existed, security agencies themselves had advised against it due to the operational risks involved and the limited potential gains. The Prime Minister’s Office also suggested that the operation’s risks were too high to proceed.
Despite this, the disclosure has triggered renewed questions about the decision-making process in the months leading up to the October 7 attacks. Security analysts are raising alarm over whether a more aggressive approach toward Hamas could have prevented the bloodshed that followed.
The Yedioth Ahronoth investigation is likely to fuel the ongoing Knesset hearings into Israel’s intelligence and policy failures surrounding the Hamas attack. Opposition leaders have already demanded expanded hearings to fully investigate why the operation to target Hamas’ leadership was not pursued. With mounting pressure on the government to account for its decisions, the revelation raises critical concerns about the readiness of Israeli security forces to respond to evolving threats from Hamas.
