Hamas ‘wanted Iran and Hezbollah to join October 7 attacks’ on Israel and ‘played dead’ so the IDF would think they wanted peace before terrorist assault

Terror group Hamas wanted Hezbollah and Iran to join in on the deadly October 7 massacre across Israel last year, new documents have revealed. 

The Palestinian militant group’s leader Yahya Sinwar was plotting to carry out the attack in autumn 2022, known internally as ‘the big project’, the documents obtained by the New York Times show. 

It ‘played dead’ to ensure that Israel was caught by surprise, with Sinwar telling top officials that they ‘must keep the enemy convinced that Hamas in Gaza wants calm.’

But during that time, it was training its fighters, and lobbying its allies to fight on October 7. 

In July 2023, Sinwar sent a senior member to Lebanon to meet a Iranian commander and ask for Tehran’s help in striking Israeli targets. 

The Hamas member reported that while Iran and Hezbollah were keen to do this, they needed more time to prepare. 

Hezbollah was invited to join in on the attack 

Iran’s military, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was in favour of the attack as well 

This contradicts intelligence shared by the US that indicated that Iranian leaders were surprised by the assault, as well as Iran’s denials that it had any role in the attack that killed around 1,200 people. 

It comes after it was revealed that Hamas planned to bomb a pair of Tel Aviv towers in a 9/11-style atrocity as part of an invasion of Israel.  

A chilling 36-page document produced by the terror group reveals detailed plans to strike Israel by land, sea and air, and bomb three of Israel’s tallest skyscrapers in a 9/11-style attack that would ‘create an unprecedented crisis for the enemy, similar to the World Trade Center crisis in New York’.

The blueprint, obtained by The Mail on Sunday, details how Hamas intended to mobilise the Palestinian population to attack Israel to bring ‘victory, beating fear into the hearts of our enemies’. 

The file was discovered by the Israeli army in the computer hard-drive of a Hamas leader during a raid on the Bader base near Gaza City last November – a month after the terror attacks.

Israeli security officials said it was likely written in September 2022, a year before the October 7 attack, which left nearly 1,200 victims dead. They said they believed it was a genuine Hamas document.  

Hamas planned a full-scale invasion of Israel on a much larger scale than the October 7 terror attacks, according to Israeli security officials, including a plot to blow up the Azrieli Centre’s three towers (pictured)

Pictured: An extract from a secret blueprint discovered by the IDF which details how Hamas intended to mobilise the Palestinian population to attack Israel

The invasion plan starts with terrorists entering Israel at the northern front, but penetrating only 12 miles into Israeli territory to deceive the IDF into thinking it is just a single attack.

Then, as the IDF focuses on the Lebanese border to the north, the whole of Israel would be stormed with a barrage of Hamas rockets from the Gaza Strip, as well as the West Bank and Lebanon.

The plan then outlines how terrorist cells inside Israel would detonate bombs in the car parks of three of the tallest skyscrapers in Tel Aviv, known as the Azrieli Centre. The towers – with 48, 46, and 42 floors – have a shopping mall on the lower floors, below which are underground car parks.

The paper says the cells would ‘boobytrap the cars with a quantity of explosives that could blow up the towers’. It adds that the bombs would also collapse the headquarters of Israel’s defence ministry next to them.

The paper says: ‘If these towers were to be destroyed in any way, it would create an unprecedented crisis for the enemy, similar to the World Trade Center crisis in New York.’ 

The Arabic paper calls Hamas fighters the ‘leaders of the [Muslim] Nation, and the raisers of the banner of Islam’, telling them to ‘liberate Jerusalem’ and ‘disgrace the children of Israel’.

The document – titled the ‘Appropriate Strategy for Building a Plan to Liberate Palestine’ – says an attack by land, sea and air must begin at Israel’s northern front, bordering Lebanon.

The document adds that 9/11-style scenes in the middle of Israel would produce ‘images of victory’, which would encourage ordinary Palestinians to take up arms.